Loading...
BFA: Dept. of Innovation & Technology / Office of the Inspector General
Unknown Speaker
Not that I'm aware of. I
Speaker 1
Good afternoon, everyone. We are back for the expanded budget Finance and Audit, extended committee to allow for budget hearings. Today is Thursday, March, 27 2025 Madam Clerk, excuse me, Mister Clerk, early. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll
Speaker 2
council member Scott Benson. Council member Fred der Hall. The third council member Letitia Johnson, present council member Gabriella Santiago Romero, present council member Mary waters, Council Member Angela Whitfield Callaway council member Coleman, a young the second Council President, pro tem James Tate, Council President Mary Sheffield,
Speaker 1
Council President indicated she would not be here for the day. Clerk was so note,
Speaker 2
you have a quorum present, Mr. President, not
Speaker 1
just me. Thank you so much. Member Young has also arrived. Clerk was so no. Thank you so much. Alright, so we are here for the two o'clock a budget hearing for do it. We will turn the floor over to Director Thompson.
Speaker 3
Good afternoon. Thank you with me this morning. I am sorry. I am art Thompson, Chief Information Officer for the City of Detroit, with me. To my right, Mr. Milder.
Speaker 4
Robert Mullin, Director of Public Safety, it and to my left,
Speaker 5
Mike home i Chief Technology Officer and Deputy Chief Information Officer
Speaker 3
afternoon, gentlemen and virtually. I don't know if we have already, but if I could ask if we promote Amy sovereign, she will be running the short slide deck for us this morning or afternoon.
Unknown Speaker
I'm all set. Thank you.
Speaker 3
Thank 
you. Thank you. So just briefly, would like to show you just a little overview of some of the things that we have done this last year, kind of what we hope to do in the next year, and then I will wrap it up and turn it over for questions. So for starters, we already did the introduction. Amy, if you will go to the next slide for me, please. Thank you. So for FY 26 DO IT budget had some great accomplishments that you know I just want to highlight. We spent a lot of time focusing on data, operations, improving metrics, breaking down silos and making sure that cross department functionality increases with the use of data. We set up what's called a data warehouse, which is where we are able to ingest or bring in different information and then tie that together to create better analytics and reporting for city departments. We made several cybersecurity enhancements. Very excited to announce that we have our first chief information security officer here with the city of Detroit, that started earlier this month, so a new role that is going to help take and advance our cybersecurity posture as we continuously fight against bad actors. We also have kind of rebranded and re identified what we used to call the department digital equity and initiatives to tag technology adoption and growth. Wanted to make sure that we separate from some of the things that are happening politically with dei and make sure that people know that we are not talking other things. So a rebranding that I hope will help continue to foster success there. I also want to report that we have the lowest open positionings in do it history, which is something that I'm very, very proud of. We're down to five vacancies, possibly six, but it's only that number, because we spoke the last year and a half really focusing on our employees, making sure that we give our employees the opportunity to advance. So we had a lot of internal growth and promotion, thus creating opportunities for different positions below and giving my team the opportunity to advance. We also did a very large thing, and it's something that really falls on deaf ears, but I want to highlight that that and that is network upgrades and encryption. For several years, we have gone through a Federal Audit, and one of the requirements was that we have end to end or site to site encryption for police facilities, with the help of ARPA and this honorable body proving we were able to get that in place, and we now have encryption at all of our Detroit police facilities, which helps us with not just security, but then also the C just audit and meeting federal requirements. So very excited about that next slide, if you don't mind, Amy, just wanted to highlight some of the recent accomplishments of my team. They do a great job. 
And you know, it's often that we forget to highlight them. So I do want to take a second and just brag about the amazing team that we have here. So we have Detroit Street View, which won 2024 Innovator of the Year by Imagine, very excited, very happy to see that my home info, the part of the website on Detroit and my.gov was awarded the government experience award by the Center for Digital Government. Imagine also awarded us the map gallery awards for Detroit's two departments out of the four possible awards in 24 so we took home 50% of the awards for that year. So great news. By again, our GIS team in our departments here in the city, we also received the 2024 UKG Innovation Award for the use of our UKG workforce management software. So my team, I again, just want to say hard at work and doing a great job. I uh, the next slide, if you will, from Amy, Oh, she got it. Some of the things that we're going to be focusing on this next fiscal year, we're going to continue our reduction in supplemental staffing. That's been something that we've talked about at this table often. And so we are very proud and very happy that we are below 20 full time contractors in the department of innovation technology. We will continue that and dwindle that number down and bring more internal resources on for long term projects on ARPA, we are seeing our projects are on time and will be completed within the deadline. So we're very happy about that. We've also worked very hard with ocfo and OCP to enhance the review of technology process. And I want to highlight that when I say enhance, I don't just mean make sure we're more stringent what we review, but we also take into consideration our contractual obligations, and are holding our partners to a higher standard than we ever have before. We have also seen our budget, you know, we are taking over the posted for all city departments. You know, we've seen, kind of throughout the industry challenges where costs are continuously inflating, but we are working very hard with our CFO to improve that and make sure that we manage those increases. We're also continuing our conversion of our contractors, as I highlighted, but also our sworn officers. One of the things when I started with the city was we had about 20 different officers instead of being on the street, we're assigned to do it, we have dwindled that number down to three, and are working hard to make sure that we are able to not have officers be in it, be out on the streets where they should be. Next slide, please Miss Amy. And some of the just increases that I want to quickly highlight that we've seen in our budget. You know, we have migrated the lean team over to do it. So there's four FTEs where we are finding more and more that enhancements, opportunities for improvement, are tying more and more closely with it, so definitely closing the gap there between us and process improvement. We also have taken on the workforce management software replacement for Dept, what we internally will call mass but we're looking to increase our officer kind of tracking management for their health and their safety, so that we can provide better services for intervention if they should need we also are seeing critical City Software continuing to face pressure for a higher cost. Do both increase to the usage, you know, as we grow as a city, those costs are coming forth towards us, but then also, we have seen, just throughout the industry, a lot of increases after COVID. And unfortunately, we're not seeing that that slow down. So we're seeing increased software expenses as well. We also will be replacing the Service Desk software. Currently we use a software called Share. Well, we're working with several different departments to pull in their requirements and make sure we have a robust Help Desk software that will help with more than just it. And then, this is an election year, so we did see some increases due to postage just as we prepare to gear up for more mass mailings. And with that, highlighting our budget for this next fiscal year, I appreciate everyone's time, and would like to turn it over for any questions.
+1
you. Thank you. So just briefly, would like to show you just a little overview of some of the things that we have done this last year, kind of what we hope to do in the next year, and then I will wrap it up and turn it over for questions. So for starters, we already did the introduction. Amy, if you will go to the next slide for me, please. Thank you. So for FY 26 DO IT budget had some great accomplishments that you know I just want to highlight. We spent a lot of time focusing on data, operations, improving metrics, breaking down silos and making sure that cross department functionality increases with the use of data. We set up what's called a data warehouse, which is where we are able to ingest or bring in different information and then tie that together to create better analytics and reporting for city departments. We made several cybersecurity enhancements. Very excited to announce that we have our first chief information security officer here with the city of Detroit, that started earlier this month, so a new role that is going to help take and advance our cybersecurity posture as we continuously fight against bad actors. We also have kind of rebranded and re identified what we used to call the department digital equity and initiatives to tag technology adoption and growth. Wanted to make sure that we separate from some of the things that are happening politically with dei and make sure that people know that we are not talking other things. So a rebranding that I hope will help continue to foster success there. I also want to report that we have the lowest open positionings in do it history, which is something that I'm very, very proud of. We're down to five vacancies, possibly six, but it's only that number, because we spoke the last year and a half really focusing on our employees, making sure that we give our employees the opportunity to advance. So we had a lot of internal growth and promotion, thus creating opportunities for different positions below and giving my team the opportunity to advance. We also did a very large thing, and it's something that really falls on deaf ears, but I want to highlight that that and that is network upgrades and encryption. For several years, we have gone through a Federal Audit, and one of the requirements was that we have end to end or site to site encryption for police facilities, with the help of ARPA and this honorable body proving we were able to get that in place, and we now have encryption at all of our Detroit police facilities, which helps us with not just security, but then also the C just audit and meeting federal requirements. So very excited about that next slide, if you don't mind, Amy, just wanted to highlight some of the recent accomplishments of my team. They do a great job. +1
And you know, it's often that we forget to highlight them. So I do want to take a second and just brag about the amazing team that we have here. So we have Detroit Street View, which won 2024 Innovator of the Year by Imagine, very excited, very happy to see that my home info, the part of the website on Detroit and my.gov was awarded the government experience award by the Center for Digital Government. Imagine also awarded us the map gallery awards for Detroit's two departments out of the four possible awards in 24 so we took home 50% of the awards for that year. So great news. By again, our GIS team in our departments here in the city, we also received the 2024 UKG Innovation Award for the use of our UKG workforce management software. So my team, I again, just want to say hard at work and doing a great job. I uh, the next slide, if you will, from Amy, Oh, she got it. Some of the things that we're going to be focusing on this next fiscal year, we're going to continue our reduction in supplemental staffing. That's been something that we've talked about at this table often. And so we are very proud and very happy that we are below 20 full time contractors in the department of innovation technology. We will continue that and dwindle that number down and bring more internal resources on for long term projects on ARPA, we are seeing our projects are on time and will be completed within the deadline. So we're very happy about that. We've also worked very hard with ocfo and OCP to enhance the review of technology process. And I want to highlight that when I say enhance, I don't just mean make sure we're more stringent what we review, but we also take into consideration our contractual obligations, and are holding our partners to a higher standard than we ever have before. We have also seen our budget, you know, we are taking over the posted for all city departments. You know, we've seen, kind of throughout the industry challenges where costs are continuously inflating, but we are working very hard with our CFO to improve that and make sure that we manage those increases. We're also continuing our conversion of our contractors, as I highlighted, but also our sworn officers. One of the things when I started with the city was we had about 20 different officers instead of being on the street, we're assigned to do it, we have dwindled that number down to three, and are working hard to make sure that we are able to not have officers be in it, be out on the streets where they should be. Next slide, please Miss Amy. And some of the just increases that I want to quickly highlight that we've seen in our budget. You know, we have migrated the lean team over to do it. So there's four FTEs where we are finding more and more that enhancements, opportunities for improvement, are tying more and more closely with it, so definitely closing the gap there between us and process improvement. We also have taken on the workforce management software replacement for Dept, what we internally will call mass but we're looking to increase our officer kind of tracking management for their health and their safety, so that we can provide better services for intervention if they should need we also are seeing critical City Software continuing to face pressure for a higher cost. Do both increase to the usage, you know, as we grow as a city, those costs are coming forth towards us, but then also, we have seen, just throughout the industry, a lot of increases after COVID. And unfortunately, we're not seeing that that slow down. So we're seeing increased software expenses as well. We also will be replacing the Service Desk software. Currently we use a software called Share. Well, we're working with several different departments to pull in their requirements and make sure we have a robust Help Desk software that will help with more than just it. And then, this is an election year, so we did see some increases due to postage just as we prepare to gear up for more mass mailings. And with that, highlighting our budget for this next fiscal year, I appreciate everyone's time, and would like to turn it over for any questions. Speaker 1
Thank you, Mr. Director lean presentation there we appreciate it. I'll start with member Young.
Speaker 6
Thank you. Appreciate it always good to see you, sir. Thank you for coming. Listen. And let me start off by saying, I'm not trying to be like a techno determinist here, or a technological solution is here, but I just think that there are so many things that you should be involved in that we could be doing there, doing around the country. So my first question I want to ask you is, we've seen innovative technologies being displayed in the Transportation Innovation Zone, which I'm proud sponsor of, uh little FYI. But can we see that through smart cities? Can we see that through, you know, public Wi Fi, or smart lighting, or smart farming, where you can actually, literally use artificial intelligence to be determined, you know, whether or not the soul is right for planting or not. Can we use that for predictive analytics, not just in terms of policing, but also in terms of illegal dumping. Can we use that in terms of sensors for our water department so make sure that our water is clean we know when to fix the infrastructure before it shows cracks or shows is damage beyond repair. Can we use that infrastructure for our public housing so we will know whether the air is clean, not just outdoor, but also indoor as well. So we can know when to make repairs. And turns that regard, can we use 3d printing to be able to print newer housing, newer technology? There's just some you can tell the chocolate at the bit here. I mean, think about this. I mean, think about this for a really long time. And so I just think that you guys really have such a great role, and you're just so underused and underappreciated undervalued, not just in terms of because you're doing a great job, doing phenomenal job anytime we need help. You guys always been responsive. I have no complaints. I would just ask you, just out of general curiosity, has there been any discussion about using artificial intelligence to make the city a smart city, and do we have the idea how much that would cost. Is that something that's being discussed? Where are we with that, and how much, you know, will I need to invest in order to make that happen? Absolutely.
Speaker 3
Thank you. That is a great question, sir, and I will say we are very heavily involved in our AI strategy. You know, the city joined what's called the coalition of AI, and it's about 400 different universities, cities, counties around the nation, trying to come up with best practices, use cases for safe and reliable use of AI. One of the biggest issues that we have as cities is we have old data that is dirty data for kind of the technical sense. So one of the things that we've done is we have a draft policy that we're working through and trying to make sure that we formalize. So as we do look to adopt a lot of these great use cases, we have some great guard rails, and I think a primary example of that, you know, our BC department, and this is kind of where some of the things that do, it does, gets a little bit lost, but I know our BC department is exploring the use of air monitors and doing a lot of exciting things, where we're helping in the background, but really focusing on them to be able to be the department, to own the technology and utilize it. We've also begun, kind of doing an AI questionnaire, where we are for focusing on how our partners use AI, so that we make sure we have a strong understanding of the use of AI as we roll out these new and additional tools. So I will say, you know, first and foremost, I want to focus on the policy and see how we can make sure we have some great guard rails. But definitely that is something that I am hyper focused on. And, you know, we're going to continuously push until we get there and we've made some great progress. I think the other part of that was the public Wi Fi. You know, we launched it at a park this year or last year we launched at a park. And I mean constant, constant, just drive to figure out how we can do more public Wi Fi in places. So we do have at all of our rec centers, that was actually some of the monies that we had used from ARPA was replacing a lot of the legacy access points wireless equipment throughout our rec center. So you know, at all of our facilities, we definitely are there and have public Wi Fi available for use. We're also working with a lot of our partners and exploring the use of a product called eduroam, and what that is, is provides students free access to what would be their school's network. So we're in the early stages of that, but that is something where I want to explore and bolster the use of student available. Wi Fi, when I say student, I don't mean you know your college students. I mean anyone who wants to learn and is attached to a university. So we've begun reaching out to Wayne Community College. Wayne State, I already know, is on board and excited. So definitely trying to bolster the availability of Wi Fi is a mission that we continue.
Speaker 6
No, I think that's excellent. I think you talk about dirty you talk particularly about the training data that you're using for the artificial intelligence. And I just wanted, I just wanted to ask you this, at the end, then I'll move on, because I'm just really excited about this. But I want to ask you, particularly, has there been any discussion in terms of, I think there's an opportunity for this technology and for you to kind of be, maybe that not be what I mean, reimagining the department here, but to be involved in almost every single aspect of the city, if you so chose to do so, depending on, depending on how you implemented that, just with, just with the technology I I just really want to know one from the standpoint that has, has there been any discussions primarily about the, well, first of all, I just wanted to say, has there been any discussions deter, is this, is the public Wi Fi, something that you're going to be doing, or is that something that's going to be headed out to the private sector? And then secondly, I just want to know, is there, is there an encompassing plan at all to be able to kind of link all of these different departments together, from your automated vehicles to transportation, from your smart lighting, from DPW, in terms of because you can, literally just from the cameras, you can literally, through predictive analytics, be able to predict human behavior and determine when someone's going to do something when not, and be able to prevent that aspect. So I just want to know, Is there plans to be able to integrate that? And also, how can we let the public know that their data is going to be protected? Because that's something that's going to be a critical issue is, is the data going to be protected that you're using? Are the algorithms going to be re weighted so we can deal with the biases of these issues? Are they going to be re sampled properly? So I just want to know, you know, you know the algorithms and how that's going to, you know, be effective in the machine learning. We go on and on and deep learning. I go on about this stuff, but I just really want to know, is there a plan overall to kind of into, to have a smart city that's kind of integrated with you at the helm, or is that something that's going to be individual departments where they'll have their own innovation officers like that, and they report back to you, yeah,
Speaker 3
it will be a mix of everything you just said. And the reason for that is, you know, like, like you touched on, privacy is huge, right? So I want to make sure that as we engage in those public private partnerships, we're responsible with data, but then also, I'm able to hold them to high standards. And, you know, we take privacy extremely serious here, and so I want to make sure that we continue on through that effort with AI, but kind of to answer your question, the fundamental issue that we had is one that we really tackled last year, and that was that data warehouse, as you talk about cross collaboration, different departments, sharing information, standing up that data warehouse and having a place where we can now start to ingest all this information and have it centralized. Was it was a huge, huge victory for us last year, and one where we saw a lot of unity from departments. So we're going to be able to start doing and tying together a lot of different information exactly like you're talking about, where we didn't have visibility before, right? And so because we just scratched that, and, you know, we have that data warehouse now in place. I think we're starting to have those conversations about, what can we do? You know, I do want to shy away from anything where it's getting into human behavioral but if we can, you know, analyze anything else, you know, definitely we're exploring and want to tie to it. And when it comes to the Wi Fi, I think it's going to be a lot of public, private partners, right? So I uplifted and made sure that we put money towards what we own as facilities, and, you know, the locations that we oversee. And then I'm trying to push for our partners to kind of open up and have that same attitude of free public Wi Fi wherever we can in the city right
Speaker 6
now, I agree. I don't want to sit up here and start talking about prioritization or getting into people's jobs or or transfer to purse humanism, or anything like that. But I do think that if you're just talking about just using the technology, just being able to use artificial intelligence to find where you could spend the best money to alleviate poverty, using drones to be able to deliver food to places that we otherwise would be harder for us to get to, and make that more efficiency, you could literally talk about reducing poverty, you can literally talk about reducing crime. You can literally talk about it. Basically, I would get into garbage, but that's a private contract, and I don't think we're gonna be doing I'm gonna let other people go on. I get to talk about this all day. Usually, I really feel some type of way about this. But thank you so much for your time, and I appreciate it. And I know I think I had a study for smart cities. Is that still happening now? Or
Speaker 3
I believe LPD, I thought it delivered that.
Speaker 6
Did you deliver that the LP is that a question I should have for them? Yeah, I believe they created
Speaker 3
a report and did a study based on information I provided them as well. If
Speaker 6
the data, the data warehouse, that's something you're still talking about. Are you ready to kind of move on that? Because no, we, we are very ready. Okay, well, I would like to make a motion to put the data warehouse into Executive Session.
Speaker 1
Okay, colleagues, there's a motion on the floor. Any objections Seeing none that action shall be taken. Perhaps up. All right, we will go to member Santiago Romero,
Speaker 7
thank you, Mr. President, through you to our do it. Team. Good afternoon. I appreciate technology, but unlike my colleague, I am a little weary of it, especially AI, especially knowing what it takes to run and how it's impacting our planet. Very much. Want to make sure that as we embrace technology and the opportunities that it can bring, that we are holding all of our values, including protecting our resources like water and our data. So just wondering, what are we doing to do that, to make sure that we balance all of the priorities here that we do take technology to help us in the ways that it can, but also be very honest about the resources it takes, not just money, but natural resources staffing. I mean, how are we going to balance this as we move forward 100%
Speaker 3
so through the chair, one of the biggest things we did is, you know, we do have multiple data centers here in the city. And again, you know, through the use of ARPA, we were able to refresh and make sure that we're improving our energy efficiency. One of the things that you know happens often in it is you go through and you bolster and bring on huge resources because you want to do a lot of compute. We have kind of gone through and reduced our footprint in our in our data centers to make sure that we're being as efficient as possible, trying to make sure that we continue that pass. But then also looked at a lot of the infrastructure that's used to run those locations, and refreshed it and made sure that we're doing more to not just leave old equipment and, you know, vacated so it's wasting, but really refresh and make sure that we're staying efficient when it from an energy consumption standpoint, so that that's definitely been huge. And I think, you know, as we have talked, you know, again, privacy, I am with you on 100% and so we definitely are looking at AI models and how we build them, but also looking at, how do we do so effectively? One of the biggest problems, you know, with large language models is you have to really make that determination of what percentage of accuracy you want to be at, and that comes at a cost. So that's why, you know, I don't want to say we're slow, but we're definitely being tactful in how we do this, and making sure that, you know, we're not just throwing money at a problem, but we're looking at it holistically. And, you know, that's why I'm so passionate about a policy is I want people to know that we do have guard rails and that, you know, we do really take into consideration our entire ecosystem. And so if we roll something out and do it, it is very, very, very thought after it is very conscious of how not only we impact our residents, our workers, but then also, you know our environment as well.
Speaker 7
Thank you. I appreciate that. And I don't think a lot of people know this. I know that we're excited. I know the solutions that come from it, but seeing the what it takes, the amount of water and energy that can, quite frankly, go to people, that's my concern. So thank you for being conscious of that as we talk about the possibilities. How are we also being conscious of people on the planet? My next set of questions really are more focused on the work that we're already doing. So just thank you so much do it, and to the administration for investing in really professional development opportunities for our staff. Green belts the Lean process. GIS Joel for my team, I'm so incredibly proud and grateful for him. He is a community services manager who has taken technology to better our systems and better our response so ultimately, to better our our service to our residents. You have been working with us in making sure that we have a business directory for District Six so that we can look up District Six finds your businesses, a church, a grocery store. I know that we're in the beta phase right now, but if you wouldn't mind sharing with the rest of my colleagues, because I would like these these systems to be used at every district throughout the city. So if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about where we are with the business map,
Speaker 3
yes, absolutely. And you know, Mike, I'm hoping you can help fill in any gap that I leave out. But one of the things that I'm excited and I left off our road map, but I am going to brag about, is the revitalization of our web page. One of the most exciting things, I think we have is, you know, a website where people can go and find services, and we have been listening over the years that it's not always the easiest to navigate, it's not always the easiest to find information at so my team has been and will continue to be, reaching out to each of your departments and seeing how we can continue to improve. We went out and actually met with residents, got feedback and really tried to take to heart what it takes to improve this website and not just look at technical so one of the things that came out of your district was kind of that business map and looking at where we can find things more easily, more accessible. And so I know internally, our plan is to have kind of you be the beta as we work through that so that we can roll it out and brag to other council members about it. But currently we I just sat through, actually, the the meeting they had where they wanted to give me the executive update. Next, we're going to hopefully meet with the mayor's office and make sure that they're excited about it and share that. But it's something that I want to roll out before the end of this fiscal year and have launched. So we're going to be very aggressive on that, because that is, I think, going to be one of the coolest thing we've done in a long time,
Unknown Speaker
through the chair. Oh, would you like to share please?
Speaker 5
Yeah, so webs, we're calling it website 3.0 so, so we're working through relaunching the website. We started last spring, actually, and we've held over 20 listening sessions in all of your districts. We've worked through and done it at the Peace Nick and all the different things, working with the citizens and seeing what do you like about our current website? What works for you, what doesn't? Can you show us how you'd look up your garbage pickup? And we learned shocking things. And the one person says, Oh, I loved your website. I use it all the time. We're like, Oh, good. Can you show it? What type of device? And we had sample devices, and she picked up the phone and said, when's my garbage pickup? We had not voice optimized our website, but this citizen, that's the only way she used it. And she's like, Well, I wish it was different, because I can't see some information is cut off. And the person doing the demo I was there, scrolled it up a little. They went, Oh, I can see it now. I didn't know you could scroll. So some of it's education of the citizens, but a lot of it was education of us. So the team's done great listening sessions in the business, maps, everything we're coming up with for the different districts or different areas that are suggested, we're building in a standard template and a standard way to be able to carry that out across the whole city, to improve services for everybody. Thank
Speaker 7
you for that through the Chair. Thank you for that. I will say what I'm most proud of and what I'm most excited about is what my team created, which is a residential hub. This should also be a part of our website build outs. Unfortunately, I will say I don't love our website. There's way too much in it. I have a hard time finding things. It's hard to navigate. So my office created a residential hub, a one stop shop. You go in there all of our team, phone numbers, emails if you want to, if you want to make a complaint of a landlord, if you want to have a hope application, if you want to, whatever the case, you know, find out how to buy a property in the city. It's all here in this one landing page through our office. So want to share that and encourage my colleagues to look into that. I hope that we can do is moving forward. It's exciting that you're getting awards for the platforms that you're creating. This is one that I would really I haven't seen other cities do this. Other governments do this. And for me, that's part of it. I I know that I often share that I'm a social worker and community organizer, but I went to business school in undergrad. I thoroughly believe in processes and systems for outcomes, and the outcomes here are the services for our residents. So thank you for what you're doing on the website updates. I'm excited to be the beta of these pages, and just really want to share and encourage Council staff to go to the smart sheet conference. Such a well once for he went through our office for professional development, and he's just been doing really incredible work with technology to better serve our residents. So just wanted to share that I'm very proud of that, and hope that you know when our time here is over that we only better communications processes and systems for residents. So thank you all first for supporting us in that. Thank you, Mr. President,
Speaker 1
thank you. And I will say that district one actually had the first Business Director of all the businesses in the district. We put it together ourselves. And just want to give you a little heads up. It is a lot of work, and it is extremely difficult to maintain because it gets outdated quickly. So just heads up. Then, you know, that's part of the reason why we sunset hours, because it is, Yep, absolutely alright, and we had it up for like, three years. As a matter of fact. Member waters,
Speaker 8
thank you, Mr. Chairman and my colleague, to my colleague from the sixth district, I want to know more about that residential hub. Oh, for sure. Alright, so you mentioned that you've done some cyber security enhancements. And could you be a little bit more specific about what some of those are? Does it involve training or policies, software solutions? I mean, what type Absolutely?
Speaker 3
And I apologize because I'm going to be a little vague and we'll dive into more specifics because just I don't like to make sure everybody knows our cybersecurity, but I will say, but I'll give as much information as I can. But, you know, one of the first and foremost is revise and revisit our policies. You know, that's something that the new CISO is, what we call for short, chief information security officer is going through, and revigorating is our policies. You know, we've got internet use policies from 2016 that just need to be revamped and retouched. So that's something that he's already started, and the supervisor under him has taken a lead on prior to and we're going to push very hard to really re strengthen that. Our best defense is every employee we have. And so with that, last year, we rolled out no before, which is a just a basic user training platform. I'm sure you guys have all seen my few emails about that, but that is because I thank you guys, and I appreciate your partnership. That is our best line of defense is educating our staff, and so that is something that we will continuously do. We're going to up that frequency, but we've actually moved to a model where we are now able to report out to each manager supervisor, where their department is, where their folk are at, as far as taking the training. So that is something that we're going to continuously do and push forward. That is a huge, huge thing for us,
Speaker 8
some of those protections city wide at all. Yes.
Speaker 3
So how we rolled that out, is anyone with an at Detroit mi.gov doesn't matter what department you're at, where you reside, if you're a seasonal worker, doesn't matter. As soon as you get an email address from the city, we are enrolling you and giving you that ability to take that training as soon as it comes out. Okay,
Unknown Speaker
thank you for that part.
Speaker 8
You spoke a little bit about the fact that you bring in students from various places. What about creating an apprenticeship program for Detroiters to upscale and earn valuable technology certifications while serving their community? Is that something that you'd be willing to take a look at? And if so, is that, you know, is there a cost to it, or do you already have the money
Speaker 3
through the chair? Actually, that was, that was an early ARPA project that we took on, and very exciting. We have three currently apprentices that came worked for the city, learning job skills, taking courses and getting certified in things such as web development and cybersecurity. So we have three total right now. It is something that I love. It's exciting. It's great to see these folks grow. It's something that, you know, I want to continue after ARPA, but I will be very honest, one of the hardest things about apprentices that I have found is the job placement after so, you know, I don't have a knock on wood high turnover, which is a good thing, but what I want to do is create a pipeline where I can bring apprentices on and then help them land a job. So I've reached out to engage Detroit at work to figure out how we better close that gap, because that was a gap that we did have. But as we look to continue those programs, I want to figure out, how do I do a better job of getting resources available for job placement and creating better opportunities? Because I don't want to do an apprenticeship and then close the door and say, Thank you. I want to see it continue and blossom beyond that. So it's something that, you know, we're testing out right now. But I am very, very concerned that I don't have the pipeline for job openings that I would like to have. So that is something that I'm continuously working
Speaker 8
on, job somewhere else. So they've gotten the training from you, you know, absolutely right, because now you're still building on the community, yes, and it doesn't the fact that they can't get it employment here at the city, there might be somewhere else. I mean, you have Blue Cross, Blue Shield, you've got GM, you have different places, so we never know if you're able to continue the training. I think there might be jobs for them, not necessarily here all the time, but could be elsewhere. Absolutely. I want to talk with you a little bit further about that. You know, I do chair the skilled trades Task Force, but and we were proposing some apprenticeship positions and so forth, a program rather So, I want to hear more about what your plans are. And I did, let me just say, finally, say, I sent you an email, and I would appreciate some feedback from you, because I was looking at this technology as it relates to the criminal justice system using AI. But I want to know your thoughts, because I'm thinking, Well, is this ain't going to invade privacy? Is it going to ultimately be too much data, but it certainly collects it a lot faster. But I really want to hear your thoughts on it, because I did put it into executive session, so I need your feedback as soon as you can provide it. Yes, ma'am. All right then, thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank
Unknown Speaker
you. Member waters, member Hall.
Speaker 9
Thank you, Mr. President. And good afternoon to you all. I'll be very brief. I want to talk about the web administration, administration staffing and the reduction in that. I'm going to be making a motion to work to to restore that funding, first of all, but then add one. FD, FTE, for ADA compliance. But can we talk about how frequently, you know, and I heard one of my colleagues mention it, we're being updated, looking into other technology that makes it easier, even for you guys to update it on a on a regular basis,
Speaker 3
absolutely. And I'm going to take it backwards, because Mike, if you can dive into the web position, but we, we work very closely with Creo to make sure that, you know, our website stays ADA compliant. That was one of the things that we made sure to take higher step in, you know, I think over the years, we've met kind of the minimum requirements, but wanted to dive into it a lot more and see how we could do a better job of meeting that. So we've been working very closely with the Office of Disability affairs to make sure that, you know, we're increasing that on web, website 3.0 and kind of highlighting that as something that we continuously are improving. But they also keep us, you know, honest and in the loop. So one of the things that they often do is keep us in the loop on trainings and different offerings that they're being sent and notified on, so that we can, you know, be more seriously and kind of take it and advance it more. And so I know they, they and us have tied directly to Microsoft a lot, and looking at the tools that we have, how can we improve them? What are the things that we, you know, don't have, that we may have with another tool, and doing a lot of assessment. So I want to see we work very closely with them, and we will see some improvements, I think, in website 3.0 but Mike, you know, they report directly to you, and you're very involved, if you want to add anything,
Speaker 5
sir, I Yeah. I'm the executive sponsor on the Disability Awareness ERG, so the disability capabilities of our website. What I tell people a lot is, everybody thinks technology is a great solution and will solve all the disability challenges. So what we don't take into account is we create barriers by mistake. Okay, technology can create barriers for people with disabilities, and websites are a great example of that. Over the years, the ADA was everybody thought you just needed to be ADA compliant. There's all sorts of tools, and we run them on our website historically, and we're feeling good that the 80 our websites, ADA compliant, working with creo, working with the disability community, that isn't what you need to be as a floor. You need to be a much better at that. And there's, there's a new version of ADA that's rolling out, that's much more robust and does actually set a more acceptable floor. So we're making sure the tools that we're giving to our citizens with the website and others are fully compliant with the new federal standards, and we're trying to enhance that out. So to the question on the one position, there was one position. It was a lower level web developing position that we had never filled. That was sort of it had fallen off the one aspect of the org chart. In looking through things and meeting with our web team, it was decided that that we truly didn't need to fill that position, so we allocated that position to a different part of do it, and closed that position out of the web team. So it wasn't that we're cutting a position and reducing resources. We're better allocating a position that we had, that we didn't utilize.
Speaker 9
So you're through you, Mr. President, so you're the guy I'm going to come to for all the ADA stuff on the website. Absolutely, you're going to take responsibility, or you are already taking responsibility for
Unknown Speaker
it. Should I say that? Yes, that is all right. I appreciate it.
Speaker 9
I look forward to having offline discussions kind of about that. And I do appreciate your dialog stating that how technology, as much as technology can advance this, it can also set us back if we are not considerate of some of those issues. So thank you for that. Did I want to talk about and touch on something that I talked about earlier when the clerk's office was here, which is creating a citywide legislative I don't know if you want to call it registry, but having the ability to have a database of all ordinances, actions take taken here at the council, and do that step by step, kind of seed to sell, so when it is introduced, when it is when it comes to committee, and when it is passed, and I know the clerk's office will be responsible for providing the information, but your office will probably be responsible for building a platform. In this platform I know we you, we utilize now munico, which is a platform that allows for that search, is about a year behind when we talk about accessing actions at this council table, or ordinances, or whatever the case may be. We want it in real time here in the city of Detroit, and we want to be able to build the infrastructure to do that. So Mr. President, I also like to make a motion to put into executive session the legislative search port, or whatever we're going to decide to call it, but,
Speaker 1
or whatever I said earlier, I'd make a motion to put that into Executive Session. Alright, there's a motion on the floor. Any objections Seeing none that action shall be
Speaker 9
taken. Thank you, Mr. President. Finally, when we talk about decreasing the digital divide, everybody talks about that, all of our families having access to internet, having access to the web. And this helps, obviously, with education. This helps with job opportunities, particularly for even some of our returning citizens, which I'll talk to you offline about, connecting folks to technology, particularly in the age we're in now, is one of the biggest disparities that that exist, right? And I heard you touch on that about having just city wide internet, I had a conversation with a gentleman from a group called merit, which I think that they do exactly what you're talking about. Maybe I'm letting the cat out the bag too early for you, but, yeah, I keep my ear to the street and so. But programs like that, I think when I heard about that, technology is just absolutely amazing, right? To be able to wherever you're at in the city of Detroit. Have access, particularly our students and our children have access to Wi Fi. We take it for granted. Sometimes. I remember when Wi Fi didn't exist. I had to go on AOL. I heard that crazy dial tone sound, but it's everywhere now, but everyone doesn't have it, and so I want to talk to you offline about that as well, art of how we continue to push that forward. I'm very supportive of that type of initiative, and I hope we can connect it between here WC three, as well as our some of our other campuses around here, but not just for the students who attend that university. I think it's important for them to be able to log in and they have a whole portal or whatnot, but also our other kids that don't have access to that. So love to talk to you offline. Thank you, Mr. President, thank you
Unknown Speaker
member Callaway,
Unknown Speaker
thank you, Mr. Chair. And good afternoon. Everyone
Speaker 10
speaking of the digital divide. When I first took office in 2022 hope village, they were had a blackout for 45 days. And we did this huge under the leadership of Joshua Edmonds and then Christina Burkett, and I think the foundation from Quicken Loans, we did this huge rollout, fiber optic infrastructure everywhere throughout the city. City proposal to make fiber optic connectivity available to every address in the city of Detroit, 30 to $40 per month. I took notes, and I remember having the meeting over at Focus HOPE. Mm, hmm. I remember practically everything that was promised and everything was that was said. And where are we with that? Because I'm still getting complaints regarding connectivity in that one little area called Hope village near the Oakman Boulevard. And you know, Jeff Jones is very active over there. He's the new president of the hope Village Community Association and U of M did a recent study saying that 42 to 59% of this homes over there in that area have no broad band internet connection. I'm only going to talk about that one area for right now, because it could be representative of other areas throughout the city, east side as well. So can you talk to us about the city's proposal for optic fiber optic connectivity being available to every resident in the city of Detroit, from 30 to $40 per month, and that would include, and I took notes back then, installation, maintenance and operations, yes,
Speaker 3
so through the chair. So that was 100% one of the most exciting plans that we've had to date. I think, if you look at innovation and just kind of exciting things around the city, connecting people at their home via fiber was going to raise property value. You know, it was going to do just tremendous things. One of the, I think the biggest challenges we had was funding. We did not get the full amount that we needed to pull off that program, and as we kind of trenched in and we were going to use ARPA dollars, we started to lose the ability to meet the deadlines of ARPA, and that money was shifted to other public facing programs. So fast forward today, where we at we're still in contact with Mr. Jones as well, and so one of the things that we're exploring is non fiber, but wireless opportunities where we can do wireless to residents and cut down the cost mentally immensely, but still provide high speed internet to hope village, and really assists there with that connectivity issue, because not to bash any provider, but I'm very disappointed in what has happened there, and I don't think that they did enough to fix it. And I'm not giving up, and we're going to continue that fight. But definitely, I think our biggest challenge right now is finding funding to pull off a large project. We do have some ideas on the technology. Actually, Mr. Edmonds comes up and meets with me every once in a while, because that's something that's still on his mind. And you know, given his new position, we would love to partner and figure out how we solve that issue, doing some new, cool and innovative things, but that definitely is our biggest barrier right now, is finding the funding to do hope Village.
Speaker 10
Okay, maybe that'll be the pilot, the pilot community through the chair to Mr. Thompson, I get calls and I get called out about it, and now it's almost, you know, three, three and a half years later. So what would it look like? Because we're how many residents are we talking about
Speaker 3
through the chair, and my memory is a little rusty, but I think pretty spot on. It was roughly 200
Speaker 10
homes, talking about 235 homes. And
Speaker 3
so the fiber plan that we had was in the 10s of millions of dollars. The new solution that we have been exploring should be just roughly over 10 million. So a large shift there, you know, cutting it in, I would say at least half. So if you look at how, you know, how many people, specifically, I'm sorry, is what you asked. You know, I would say just under 1000 you know, a large chunk of folk that could use that, that opportunity. So that is to answer your question, that is, the number is roughly 1000 people. And definitely, like I said, something that we're, we're not giving up on yet, but it's definitely something that I would like to see sooner than later completed. Okay,
Speaker 10
through the chair to you. Mister Thompson, what happened with that ten million that you all were talking about and Quicken Loans? Partner Foundation partnering with us just we're only talking about hope Village. We're not talking about the entire city yet. But we know through the chair. We know at the height of COVID, a lot of our homes were not connected. A lot of children lost a lot of academic time. I was out delivering hot spots and laptops and tablets to children. They were using their mom's cell phone while she was at work to do homework. They were just not connected, and so we just gotta do better by our residents. We spend a lot of a lot of money on other things. This is imperative. This is we had a lot of seniors in that area. Couldn't get to the doctor, couldn't make phone calls. We had a lot of emergencies, medical emergencies in that area, no phone lines AT and T all the lines were down 45 just imagine anyone in this room. Imagine not having access to internet or your phone for 45 days. Some of us will go cuckoo. If we lost it for one day, we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves. So sir, I'm going to put this into Executive Session. We're talking about a small community we cannot afford for them, because the potential is there for them to have another outage like that. That was 45 days, lots of seniors over there. And I know we all care about seniors, but I'm going to put this into Executive Session. I don't know how much money for that small community, we can come up with a number later, you and I can talk about it, and maybe we need to go back to quicken, to their foundation, because I can't remember the young lady's name. I think it starts with a G. I think is G, U, n, n, I can't remember what's her name. Laura grandman, yes, yes. We need to connect with her again, because we if we could just start with that very small community, because we dash their hopes. We really did. We didn't go back over there. We did through the chair. We did this huge roll out. I was there. I was so excited. And then now I'm talking to my residents over there and nothing. So we can't go out like that. So I'm going to put this executive session hope village and fiber optic infrastructure and to Executive Session. That's my motion, sir. There's
Speaker 1
a motion on the floor. Colleagues. Any objections Seeing none the action shall be
Speaker 10
taken. Okay? And lastly, thank you, Mr. Chair. Lastly, we do have ARPA dollars that are left over because we make promises to to that community. The mayor made promises. You made promises. Joshua Edwards made promise and Quicken, and we can't make promises and just walk away like it, like we never made them. We can't do that. So some kind of way we gotta keep part of our word. We can't keep the whole word. Something is better than nothing. So I'm glad that's going to be an Executive Session. I'll talk to you maybe one day next week, when we can talk about some hard numbers. And then lastly, improve Detroit app. Love it. My residents love it. We teach them how to use it, how to upload photos, information. Who designed that app.
Speaker 3
So it was purchased by a company called see click Fix. They were the designers. They are the ones who own that app.
Speaker 10
So wonderful app, who manages it. So when we put all the information and where does that go?
Speaker 3
So it is a cloud based application, but on the side of receiving the information it owns and operates it from a management standpoint. So depending on the complaint, we send it to the specific departments so that it doesn't get hung up waiting for it to push it anywhere. Each category is routed to the specific department that can resolve the
Speaker 10
issue. Okay, through the chair. How many people are managing the system? Because sometimes we have tickets in there outstanding. So what is the turnaround time if I were to put something in 4pm today, what's the turnaround time for that ticket to get processed or sent to the right department
Speaker 3
through the chair? It gets sent to the department almost immediately, so it is routed as soon as it is logged, which you know, takes seconds in it, it immediately shoots over to that department for notification. So within, you know, less than an hour, it should be routed in the department's hands. Each department has different service level agreements that they follow based on the type of issue that is, you know, complaint to them, okay?
Speaker 10
So they're not like through the chair. They're not like prioritized in terms of urgency just based on when they come in.
Speaker 3
Oh, correct, right. It is a received by date, you know, time stamp kind of thing.
Speaker 10
Okay? All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mister Chair. We'll talk about hope, yes.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
Member Johnson, I
Speaker 11
thank you, Mr. President, and good afternoon to you all. I would like to ask for you all to share information about the tech bars and how effective they are,
Speaker 3
absolutely so through the Chair. Just a brief example of what this is. So one of our projects for our digital equity initiative was standing up different tech bars or locations where people get tech support on their devices. And so we entered, we opened them in each district, making sure that we can have a place for everyone to go. And so they have been going fairly well. You know, we were definitely picking up momentum after we did the press announcement and started to kind of push further for awareness on them. I think when we did the soft launch, and again, we just did this at the end of the year started, you know, early this year, it was pretty quiet, but as we've publicized it and been more vocal we're seeing, you know, good foot traffic. I definitely want to raise awareness and do more to make sure that people know they're out there. But we are seeing people come through. We typically staff it six to eight hours a day, depending on the location, but we definitely want to see adoption grow, because that's one of the ways that I'm looking at trying to find stability for that program. Long term is if I can present numbers and have kind of a good following for the program, I think we gain traction on its stability long term.
Speaker 11
Alright, great. I didn't know anything about it until a young person in my office told me about it. So I would love to get some information where I can help market it and get more residents familiar with it and utilizing it, and I'm wondering if it might help you to determine where you go to next to do Some infrastructure improvements for connectivity.
Speaker 3
Sorry, I'm taking notes. Yes, though it definitely could. And that's one of the good things about doing these programs, is, you know, the biggest power mint I have is data when I can find that, you know, residents in your district aren't using it because, you know, maybe they are connected, or maybe we're not doing enough communication. I can make that determination because I now have data, I have information to provide in react to. So that's definitely something that we set up early on. It was making sure we had good metrics and information, and that's some of the things that we're going to be able to track down and see is, you know, what is our age groups that need different services in those areas? And so we're definitely tracking that, and definitely going to be using that to see how we can expand and provide better strategy moving forward.
Speaker 11
Sounds great. Thank you. And when you talk today about the sworn police officers that work for do it, I'd never known that. So are they at the data centers that the city has that's holding all of the data that we utilize.
Speaker 3
No So, you know when, when I started here in 2016 I would say I ran public safety. You know Robert, Robert now has this job, so he's going to kick me for talking, but we, we had a roughly about 15 people that were assigned to just public safety. It so they only assisted with the Public Safety realm of things specifically in police if you look at today, we are down to three members. Their primary functions are in regards to the police systems and police operations with things such as, you know, body cameras, making sure that they're functioning and operating appropriately. And, you know, Robert, if there's anything to add there, but they are primarily focused on police activities and police technology.
Speaker 4
And I just want to add one more thing to that. I've been here a little longer than I heard, and I was here when I was here, when the police, it was his own section Police. It probably had 50 people in unless you know the progression we've made in doing that. Police, it was his own section. They had their own data center, 1300 bowl being at the time, and they ran everything individualized, kind of separate from it. We moved that into being more consolidated. So that way now we're able to get account to the scales when we go out to purchase goods and do things around the city. So that's what we're getting into now. Like we said, we've went from probably, like I said that 50 to 100 down to three or four was primary responsibilities are to help go out look at the cameras. They basically work in the tech function, but they'd be able to go get access to different areas that maybe some ordinary civilians person can't get to. So that's why we do it that way. So we only have like three right now who work in that section.
Speaker 11
Okay, thank you. When you said it, I was thinking like they are protecting data centers or something. And I thought about what member young and Member Santiago Romero talked about with these data centers coming online and housing all of this information that everybody's going to have access to. Okay? Thank you to
Speaker 4
the chair. One thing I will add to that is the benefit is our data centers are located very close to where security and these officers are as well. So that's how they are secure in some ways.
Speaker 1
All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you member Johnson. And want to thank Director Thompson and his team for stopping by for our budget. Hearing any additional motions? Colleagues say, none this. You have a motion. Motion, that's it. We're gonna keep it moving. Thank you. All right, we take Thank you
Speaker 9
motion, yeah, Mr. President, thank you. And to member callaways point, and I'm glad she brought that up. I do think we need to improve the improve Detroit app in a lot of ways, where our where our constituents, can see in real time, where their issue is as well. I think that transparency is important. I don't know if you're going to make that motion, member Calloway, but I love to join you on that as well. Because I think as we are looking and going into the future, those are those questions we get, where is the status, you know, of my issue I called three days ago. I want to know, at least be able to see that. I think people feel a lot better if they could see where their issue is in the pipeline.
Speaker 10
So Mr. Chair, if I might motion to move the
Speaker 1
have not been recognized, that the chair recognizes your first member, Callaway, what was yours?
Unknown Speaker
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you member der Hall,
Speaker 10
I moved to put the improve Detroit app and all the discussions that we've had into executive session. Thank you, Mr. Der Hall. Member Durham,
Speaker 1
there's a motion on the floor. Any objection Seeing none that action shall be taken. And
Speaker 9
discussion, Mr. Chair, and just for LPD, if you can add me to that. And again, thank you. Member Callaway, for bringing up that issue. Thank you, Mr.
Speaker 1
President, you're welcome. Motion, yeah, I got hope. Alright, remember, yeah,
Speaker 6
I would like to also to closing resolution smart cities. I think that's something that's important. And thank you so much for allowing me to have this conversation with you. You have no idea when I had this conversation with people, people, either they're all talking hieroglyphics or they put on building Skype. So to be able to have it with someone who understands me, you have no idea what you done for today. Thank you. I appreciate you to appreciate your watermark. There's
Speaker 1
a motion on the floor, Colleagues, any objection Seeing none that action shall be taken. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Thank you. We should now close out the budget hearing for Department of innovation and technology and move into the budget hearing for the Office of Inspector General.
Speaker 6
And thank you. Amber Easton, too. Thank you. Appreciate you. Applause.
Unknown Speaker
IG come up looking out Daffy at him. Proved i
Unknown Speaker
One Morning level. All right, you?
Speaker 4
Okay, look forward to, no, I don't think so.
Speaker 1
It's a you didn't you didn't have a handout or anything. Did you Okay? I
Speaker 1
No pressure. No pressure. Just the last, just, last hearing of The day. No Pressure.
Unknown Speaker
Okay.
Unknown Speaker
Right? I'm
Speaker 12
i Now, the bad part about it is I brought our IT guy over. He's been back there relaxing.
Unknown Speaker
I'll introduce him later. So we're going to
Speaker 12
knowing 
that this is the last presentation of the day. I don't want to take too much time, so we're going to let the PowerPoint catch up. It's coming. But first I'd like to thank this honorable body for having us in this afternoon. We're going to try to go quickly, because I know what it's like. I've been there those these long budget days, and so we want to get through and see we've caught up. So that's a good thing. My name is Kamau Marable. I have the honor of serving as the Inspector General for the city of Detroit. To my right is Jennifer Bentley, who serves as our Deputy Inspector General. So just real briefly, in past years, we spent a lot of time talking about what we're going to do. So I'm going to abbreviate that, because you all have heard that for four years, and I think you got that down. So the as you know, the purpose of the OIG is to detect and root out fraud, abuse, waste and corruption in city government and contracting. Our jurisdiction extends over all public servants, including city contractors, business entities, individuals who seek to have contracts 
or certifications from the city, all in the realm of waste, abuse, fraud and corruption, we meet our charter mandate by reviewing, evaluating and vetting complaints. We investigate and or audit and make findings. So we want to get right into our statistics for the previous year, which can be found on our website, either at deto ig or detroitmi.gov, Office of Inspector General. Okay, so we're going to start with the calendar year 24 January through December 31 we received and or reviewed 263 complaints. In that time, we closed 250 complaints. We initiated 38 investigations, and we completed and close 21 investigations. Want to give a brief update to how we're doing things now. We made a slight change. We're not a slight change. We used to report our complaint closure under no action, but I was finding that my people spend a lot of time even on the most minor complaint. So when we got to reporting this, we wanted to kind of let the public know that we weren't just closing it with no action, that many of the complaints that we had that we closed, we did something with, as we've stated before, and maybe not clearly for whatever reason. If you put complaints in into Google, our office comes up. And so what that means is we get a lot of complaints that aren't our bailiwick. And you all know my history of my old city council staffer. And one thing you did, you helped the people when they call. So our mandate for years have been, when you call us, we're going to give you some help. We're just not going to say it's not our shop. So we find ourselves helping in one of two ways. If we can help, that's one, a formal referral to somebody that they can help them, and that's something where we say we will call them and tell them that you have a problem and to help you. And then we have the informal where we say, this is where you can go to help. One of the things that we did do, because a lot of times we get, because we are first line, we get those kind of horrible complaints, I'm about to kill my neighbor, and I say, if we get that, you know you need to call somebody you just can't, you 
know, leave that alone. So that's something that is a formal referral. What we do. So looking back into this, this new year, this is how we are doing our statistics moving forward. So we've to date, and we've been busy this year. We've received 89 complaints. We've closed 9210 are pending. Out of those, we have 14 former referrals, formal referrals, 46 informal referrals, and 26 no actions. In that time, we've opened six and closed one investigations and 44 are pending. So I know the numbers don't make sense, but 13 of those complaints were pending from the previous year. So back to calendar year 2024, some other stats that we think that you all should know about. We conducted two administrative hearings, and that's when we have a court reporter. We call in somebody to generally, it's over debarment that we have administrative hearings, and basically we run an informal hearing. So we've had two of those in 24 and in 2024 we issued two interim suspensions. We issued 10 debarments. We work with local, state and federal authorities, resulting in criminal prosecution, and I have a highlight slide on that in just a little bit. In 
August of 24 there was a new inspector general who took office. So this is the 27th so I think today I have been in this position for six months in one day. So highlights, we wanted to highlight that, that case that we just talked about. You all remember this from last year the conclusion of a six year joint investigation with OIG SIG tarp and the Michigan ag resulting in felony charges for David Homan and and David McDonald of Denman as part of that 1.2 5 million was went to the city before sentencing as part of the total and The total restitution for that is $4.72 million and I didn't get a chance to check, but I wanted to check and see if we got any additional payments since that 1.25 I will follow up on that. So that's a 24 highlight. We published 11 memorandums and official reports. We published for OIG quarterly reports timely. We published three editions of our newsletter good government, and we issued seven press releases. Okay, want to talk briefly about the recommendations that we've made to city departments, and this is something new that we started doing in this administration, in my administration. So although we started tracking the status of the various recommendations we make to departments and agencies, we have not never quantified the adoption of such a policy, until now, we are honored that many of our recommendations are considered and adopted. It is an indication that our value to our fellow public servants, spans beyond punitive or corrective action. It is equally gratifying. It is equally impactful and more gratifying to know that we have contributed to making an operation of city government better and less susceptible to fraud, abuse, waste and corruption. Ideally, that impact not only that impacts not only our employees, but our citizens as well. We are here to help the city achieve good government as our citizens desire and deserve. I want to give a quick antidote about that. One of the recommendations that we made in the previous year was that HR train the individuals that deal with hiring in the departments, because we were getting a lot of cases where folks would be involved in that, and they would do improper stuff, and it happened multiple times. So we sat down with HR, we made a finding that they needed to do something about that. So they instituted a training, a pretty serious training, where they say, if you are a subject matter expert, that's what they call you in the process, you need to sit down and take this training and get checked off on it. And, you know, we, you know, applaud it at the time. And I noticed I was getting these emails about me signing up for this. And, you know, I get an email and you you know. So I ignored it, and I said, Wait a minute. Oh Lord, this is the recommendation that we made. I better get on this. And I took the training. It was very helpful. And for those who take the trainings will not, at least accidentally, have the issues that we were seeing in the past. So we've made some fundamental changes to how the O, i, o, I, G operates. Why? As as good as we were, we were out of compliance with standards that we operate operate by, which led to inefficient operations. Don't get me wrong. We were getting the job done, but not optimally when so I've already started changing workflows within the office that establishes new positions as working titles as we work to have positions established. So that's the why and the when. Let's talk about the how.
+2
that this is the last presentation of the day. I don't want to take too much time, so we're going to let the PowerPoint catch up. It's coming. But first I'd like to thank this honorable body for having us in this afternoon. We're going to try to go quickly, because I know what it's like. I've been there those these long budget days, and so we want to get through and see we've caught up. So that's a good thing. My name is Kamau Marable. I have the honor of serving as the Inspector General for the city of Detroit. To my right is Jennifer Bentley, who serves as our Deputy Inspector General. So just real briefly, in past years, we spent a lot of time talking about what we're going to do. So I'm going to abbreviate that, because you all have heard that for four years, and I think you got that down. So the as you know, the purpose of the OIG is to detect and root out fraud, abuse, waste and corruption in city government and contracting. Our jurisdiction extends over all public servants, including city contractors, business entities, individuals who seek to have contracts +4
or certifications from the city, all in the realm of waste, abuse, fraud and corruption, we meet our charter mandate by reviewing, evaluating and vetting complaints. We investigate and or audit and make findings. So we want to get right into our statistics for the previous year, which can be found on our website, either at deto ig or detroitmi.gov, Office of Inspector General. Okay, so we're going to start with the calendar year 24 January through December 31 we received and or reviewed 263 complaints. In that time, we closed 250 complaints. We initiated 38 investigations, and we completed and close 21 investigations. Want to give a brief update to how we're doing things now. We made a slight change. We're not a slight change. We used to report our complaint closure under no action, but I was finding that my people spend a lot of time even on the most minor complaint. So when we got to reporting this, we wanted to kind of let the public know that we weren't just closing it with no action, that many of the complaints that we had that we closed, we did something with, as we've stated before, and maybe not clearly for whatever reason. If you put complaints in into Google, our office comes up. And so what that means is we get a lot of complaints that aren't our bailiwick. And you all know my history of my old city council staffer. And one thing you did, you helped the people when they call. So our mandate for years have been, when you call us, we're going to give you some help. We're just not going to say it's not our shop. So we find ourselves helping in one of two ways. If we can help, that's one, a formal referral to somebody that they can help them, and that's something where we say we will call them and tell them that you have a problem and to help you. And then we have the informal where we say, this is where you can go to help. One of the things that we did do, because a lot of times we get, because we are first line, we get those kind of horrible complaints, I'm about to kill my neighbor, and I say, if we get that, you know you need to call somebody you just can't, you 
+1
know, leave that alone. So that's something that is a formal referral. What we do. So looking back into this, this new year, this is how we are doing our statistics moving forward. So we've to date, and we've been busy this year. We've received 89 complaints. We've closed 9210 are pending. Out of those, we have 14 former referrals, formal referrals, 46 informal referrals, and 26 no actions. In that time, we've opened six and closed one investigations and 44 are pending. So I know the numbers don't make sense, but 13 of those complaints were pending from the previous year. So back to calendar year 2024, some other stats that we think that you all should know about. We conducted two administrative hearings, and that's when we have a court reporter. We call in somebody to generally, it's over debarment that we have administrative hearings, and basically we run an informal hearing. So we've had two of those in 24 and in 2024 we issued two interim suspensions. We issued 10 debarments. We work with local, state and federal authorities, resulting in criminal prosecution, and I have a highlight slide on that in just a little bit. In +2
August of 24 there was a new inspector general who took office. So this is the 27th so I think today I have been in this position for six months in one day. So highlights, we wanted to highlight that, that case that we just talked about. You all remember this from last year the conclusion of a six year joint investigation with OIG SIG tarp and the Michigan ag resulting in felony charges for David Homan and and David McDonald of Denman as part of that 1.2 5 million was went to the city before sentencing as part of the total and The total restitution for that is $4.72 million and I didn't get a chance to check, but I wanted to check and see if we got any additional payments since that 1.25 I will follow up on that. So that's a 24 highlight. We published 11 memorandums and official reports. We published for OIG quarterly reports timely. We published three editions of our newsletter good government, and we issued seven press releases. Okay, want to talk briefly about the recommendations that we've made to city departments, and this is something new that we started doing in this administration, in my administration. So although we started tracking the status of the various recommendations we make to departments and agencies, we have not never quantified the adoption of such a policy, until now, we are honored that many of our recommendations are considered and adopted. It is an indication that our value to our fellow public servants, spans beyond punitive or corrective action. It is equally gratifying. It is equally impactful and more gratifying to know that we have contributed to making an operation of city government better and less susceptible to fraud, abuse, waste and corruption. Ideally, that impact not only that impacts not only our employees, but our citizens as well. We are here to help the city achieve good government as our citizens desire and deserve. I want to give a quick antidote about that. One of the recommendations that we made in the previous year was that HR train the individuals that deal with hiring in the departments, because we were getting a lot of cases where folks would be involved in that, and they would do improper stuff, and it happened multiple times. So we sat down with HR, we made a finding that they needed to do something about that. So they instituted a training, a pretty serious training, where they say, if you are a subject matter expert, that's what they call you in the process, you need to sit down and take this training and get checked off on it. And, you know, we, you know, applaud it at the time. And I noticed I was getting these emails about me signing up for this. And, you know, I get an email and you you know. So I ignored it, and I said, Wait a minute. Oh Lord, this is the recommendation that we made. I better get on this. And I took the training. It was very helpful. And for those who take the trainings will not, at least accidentally, have the issues that we were seeing in the past. So we've made some fundamental changes to how the O, i, o, I, G operates. Why? As as good as we were, we were out of compliance with standards that we operate operate by, which led to inefficient operations. Don't get me wrong. We were getting the job done, but not optimally when so I've already started changing workflows within the office that establishes new positions as working titles as we work to have positions established. So that's the why and the when. Let's talk about the how. Speaker 12
So the first thing that we did, and I'd like to thank your honorable body for approving this position. One of the things that and I've tried to keep the promises that I made during my interview, they just weren't words to me. They were promises. So one of the things that I asked that said I would do is add a hierarchal relationship in the Office of Inspector General. It did not exist. So the first thing that we did was create a manager of investigations and audit. Never had managers. We just had the Deputy Inspector General and the Inspector General, and by no standard of the kind of work we do. Are you supposed to have that type of relationship when you have no managers checking the work before they go to the bosses. So we created this position, we were blessed to have a person in the office that was perfect for it, one of our auditors, who had been with the Office pretty much since the beginning. And this person was equally adapt at investigations and audit. We call her the unicorn as her code name, and so she was the perfect fit for this position, so it did not exist at the time. So she's been working as a working title. She doesn't expect to get any back pay, but she's been doing this pretty much since November, when we created the position and we changed the workflow based on that, so we appreciate her for that. But you know, time is of the essence. We got six years at this job, and I don't want to waste a minute, so we got started with the creation of the manager of investigations and audit, which gave us the opportunity to change our workflow. So as I stated, our former workflow was everything flowing up to the IG or di G and it wasn't a step thing. If I had time to look at a draft of something, then I would, if the IG had a time, she would. It created bottlenecks, and we were misaligned to the best practices of OIG standards, the new workflow positions the manager of investigations and audit. The workflow goes up through them, the MIA to my deputy. They handle routine closures and preliminary drafts are resolved. I get to focus on approval of final drafts and closure memos resulting in investigations and initiating reviews, and I direct as required. This is in alignment with best practice and OIG standards. Okay, so on. Briefly talk about some some things that we've added to the office under the category new offerings that we think will make our office better for city government. And to lead up this first one doing inspections and evaluations, Deputy Jennifer Bentley is going to brief on that.
Speaker 13
So one initiative we're looking to get started is inspections and evaluations, and it gives us the ability to review and assess policies and programs with an emphasis on identifying compliance issues and the potential risks of fraud, abuse, waste and corruption. It's a nice feature, and it'll be a nice addition to our office, because it's more flexible than forensic audits, it's less prescriptive, and it's different from investigations and inspections and evaluations, we focus more on process and inefficiencies, whereas investigations focus on individuals responsible for wrongdoing, there are several benefits to inspections and evaluations providing a proactive oversight where we can determine compliance with regulations and policies. We can identify waste, we can evaluate the likelihood of fraud, abuse, waste or corruption, and we can make recommendations to enhance government operations and transparency. So this is a really nice tool for us to focus not just on detecting existing waste, abuse, fraud and corruption, but to get more into the preventative piece, which is a charter mandated responsibility for us,
Speaker 12
all right, I want to go back because I missed the slide somewhere. Want to go back and thank Council. One of the items that we asked for, really the only item we asked for last year was an information analyst, not an IT. Person that we sorely needed in council granted that for us, we hired that person, I want to say, in November, and he's been with our office since then. His name is Srinivas. Gamble is here today. It's first time at Council. He's been around the city working contractually for almost 20 years, and he's never been to council. So I thought it was a good idea I bring him today, and so he could thank you all for for his job. So we do appreciate it. He's been busy already doing a lot of things that, as I stated before, I was kind of holding the fort down with it, and I am not an IT guy, and the things that he's been able to achieve to bring our internal operations to another level shows that. So he's basically been working on get our getting our, it house in order. His next mission over the next few months is is going to be that data analysis piece that we promised that he would do. So right now, he's getting us together, and then he's going to work on getting our data together. So real briefly, want to talk about another offering that we have for departments or public servants in general, and that's the OIG advisory, once again, being more proactive. We, you know, yes, we do do investigations, we do make findings. Some of those are critical, but our purpose, or the charter, is beyond that. And so one of the things that we added in talking to departments is the ability, through these OIG advisory memorandums, for them to seek us out if they have a an operation that they're not sure about that may be vulnerable to fraud, abuse, waste and corruption. They can come to us and say, Hey, Mr. IG, can you check this out and let us know if this is something that that makes sense from your jurisdiction, and we will do an evaluation. That evaluation will be between us and that department. It won't be published by us. You know, of course, we are subject to FOIA, but we won't publish it, and they can do what they will with that report, but it's just another tool that we wanted to offer departments. You know, in light of avoiding those pitfalls and staying out of the other business side of what we do want to talk about this is another commitment that I made during my interview, that we would increase our community engagement, and we've done that. So in the 12 years that we've existed here to for we really haven't gotten out to the community, but it was a promise that we made, so we've taken it on, full on. As you can see, we've gotten our little giveaways and our little signage and everything together. We've been out in the community. We've been in district two, we've been in District Four, we've been in district seven, and I think those council members, do you know the that we were there and all of those and we had a great time interacting with the community. And I know that it's needed, because every time I asked, the first thing I asked when I sit down is, who knows about the Office of Inspector General? And we maybe get one or two hands raised. So until I get a room full of people who say, we know who you are, then we're going to be going out in the community. So we've done several already. We have several plan going on my staff. Well, they're all Sally, so I can't say that they're necessarily volunteering their time, but they have been eager and engaging and getting out with me in the community. So that is something new. We're doing in the Office of Inspector General. Also want to talk about our social media outreach, which we've increased. I've never been a social media person. I'm probably in between that generation where you can be, but it was never my thing. Thank God I got staff. Who does it and who does it? Well, they've created a committee, the smack committee, the social media Action Committee, so they they meet regularly on what things we're going to be posting and how we're going to post, and we have a a whole what we will do and what we won't do and I appreciate that for them and our chair. Ty Greene ran some stats, so I want to share that with you all, just to know that that we were taking this thing seriously. So our LinkedIn following has doubled since last year. Our audience consists primarily of OIG and similar or related professional organizations and government stakeholders across all platforms, online engagement and impressions. I don't even know what impressions are, but sounds good to me, are up 30 and 50% respectively, so significantly more people are seeing our posts and engaging with our content. So that is also part of our community engagement. Okay, so now to the the the hard part, and it's not hard. I'm not I know that, that you all have been, that my colleagues and myself have been talking about proportional funding. Proportional funding, the resolution is out there, so I'm not going to beat too much the dead horse, and hopefully it's not dead, and hopefully it's alive and will be voted on. But just wanted to note that the timeline that the charter, 2012 charter mandated, the proportional funding ordinance, it took us some time 2024 to actually pass it. And once again, I'd like to thank this honorable body for doing that, and we just await the resolution to activate that. And so I'm going to speak as in terms of, as they say in church, as it's done. So we're going to talk about what that means for our office. So I'm not going to hit you with the litany, but I would like to share again. And I made this statement because I do think that we have a unique relationship with city budget based on how and when we were created. So if you could indulge me, shortly, I just want to read this, this brief statement. So I've been in the Office of Inspector General Since 2012 charter establishment, the first and only office created solely as an independent agency. I can share with you that our office was established in Fall 2012 per the charter, and march 2013 the city, the city entered into emergency management. We managed to stand up this office under the most difficult conditions. We never had an opportunity to consider what was optimal way to operate effectively as an Office of Inspector General, we had to consider what we could do to function at a minimum, at a time when entire police precincts were being shut down and or merged, we knew as laudable as the purpose of our office was that we would take a back seat to those priorities. There was no opportunity to benchmark with other IG officers. We made fundamental concessions based on what could sustain us now and not building foundationally. Don't get me wrong, we've done a good job, but not in the most optimal way. Our office never had an opportunity to align correctly, even after the city emerged from bankruptcy. The budget department had its expectations that, quite frankly, never gave a care about our priorities set by baselines that created artificial gravity that could determine how much we were asking for. We are only asking for this or that over baseline. That was always, I can go back to slides back in the day, and that was our conversation. This is where we are, the budget department and the mayor's budget never once approved any additional needs that our office, of our office, over and beyond citywide salary increases and contractual obligations. So year after year, we were forced to make our case to city council and compete with a myriad of other worthy priorities. Once again, we asked for what we might be approved for, but never what we needed to do fully and optimally. This includes the management tier that we talked about. That's why we haven't had it until now. So this ordinance and the resolution that makes it real is our first opportunity become, to become the OIG the city needs and deserves. We want to avoid the type of fraud that became all too real in 2012 and prior. So that's, you know, my statement in regards that I want to share with you what our proportional funding percentage looks like, and then we can talk about the current fundamentally. So as you can see, this shows our
Unknown Speaker
2024
Speaker 12
budget, 
what we were given for the 25 budget, and what our proportional funding would would be. So basically, what we're seeking is to take our staff to 15 individuals. It would be 2.2% of the city's budget, point 2% of the city budget, the entire proportional funding resolution would be less than 1% of the city budget. So we think that that's not too much to ask, but that would allow us to establish all of the positions that we need to be a successful Office of Inspector General. So in terms of this year's budget, the delta between, once again, there's always a delta between what we asked for and what we get. And this is, is that that delta $171,379 so we we need to fund the manager of investigations in audits in the next fiscal year, we did your honorable body did approve the position for this year, but it was after the budget, proposed budget came to be, so it's not in next year's budget. So we have to fund that, and then we have some additional operating expenses that we've added to the budget that we did not get funded to for a total of $171,000
+1
what we were given for the 25 budget, and what our proportional funding would would be. So basically, what we're seeking is to take our staff to 15 individuals. It would be 2.2% of the city's budget, point 2% of the city budget, the entire proportional funding resolution would be less than 1% of the city budget. So we think that that's not too much to ask, but that would allow us to establish all of the positions that we need to be a successful Office of Inspector General. So in terms of this year's budget, the delta between, once again, there's always a delta between what we asked for and what we get. And this is, is that that delta $171,379 so we we need to fund the manager of investigations in audits in the next fiscal year, we did your honorable body did approve the position for this year, but it was after the budget, proposed budget came to be, so it's not in next year's budget. So we have to fund that, and then we have some additional operating expenses that we've added to the budget that we did not get funded to for a total of $171,000 Unknown Speaker
so that would be $171,000
Speaker 12
in addition to the $1.9 million that that the budget department allocated. So that with with that, I'll close and entertain any questions your honorable body may have.
Speaker 1
Alright. Thank you so much, Mister IG inspector general Marable, it is very clear that you all have done tremendous with the funding that you've been provided. We've got a whole list of accomplishments and in a short period of time and congratulations on all the great work that you and your team have done. I would like colleagues, if someone could please move $171,379 into the budget for the Office of Inspector General for the items that were requested as a motion on the floor, any objection Seeing none that action shall be taken. Thank you so much, and we shall now go to member draw.
Speaker 9
Thank you, Mr. President. Don't have many questions to ask. Mr. President has already taken care of some of the heavy, heavy lifting down there. I just wanted to thank you personally, though, for working with our office on the procurement ordinance. You helped make it a better ordinance, more transparency, but also ensured protection for the city as well. And so I appreciate you and your team reaching out personally, taking the time to engage with us to improve that ordinance. As far as your second comment with the resolution, it is in committee now, and in the same spirit in which you push forward, we have requested a fiscal impact study just to ensure that we are covering all our bases as well. And so soon, as soon as we're able to get that back. We look forward to taking that up. And I saw you the other day in committee. You left before I got a chance to tell you that, but we are going to be looking forward to taking that up as soon as the administration has the opportunity to review it totally as well. Thank you, Mr. President, thank
Unknown Speaker
you member Callaway,
Speaker 10
Mr. Chair, and good afternoon, everyone again, congratulations on being the new Inspector General and your amazing team. I don't have any questions, but I do look forward to working with you in the coming years. Thank you, sir. Member Johnson,
Speaker 11
thank you, Mr. President, good afternoon. Thank you for coming back to your neighborhood in District Four to the Morningside community, certainly do appreciate that, and look forward to seeing you throughout the district in other areas to help keep them informed on what you all do. My question to you is, and I know we're talking about proportional funding now, and we passed the resolution last year. I believe. Do you know if, pre bankruptcy, the Office of the Inspector General was quote, unquote fully funded,
Speaker 12
so through the chair, that's the issue. There was no Office of Inspector General. Pre bankruptcy, we were created as an entity in the 2012 charter. So the IG at the time was appointed in late
Unknown Speaker
fall of 2012
Speaker 12
I want to say we went into emergency manager in spring 2013 so we literally were raised up. And so there was never any fully funding. We never got an opportunity to to benchmark or or see what an Office of Inspector General truly looks like. We did what we could with the funds that we had and at the time and that we were allotted to, and that's always been our case. So we're a little different than any other agency, because we we can't look back to that before time, because this is, this is how we were created.
Speaker 11
Okay, thank you for that. And I know I always receives the investigative reports that comes from the Office of the Inspector General, with the proportional funding and with the 15 FTEs, how do you anticipate that will impact the work that you do? And I've always wondered, who listens to what happens around here on a daily basis, and all of the concerns that get addressed, and would those be things that you would investigate if there was some information that was provided or shared with you, or even reaching out to the individuals who bring those concerns forward, because they continue to do it? Is that something that you have done since you've been with the office, or something that you would entertain
Speaker 12
through the chair, it's not something that we've done, you know, mainly because, you know, we don't have contact information in there, you know. And I'm assuming that you're talking about, like, public comment and those kind of items. I know that count individual council members have referred folks to our office, and we've looked at those complaints on a regular basis. We don't have a problem with that. That's what we're here for when we're out in the community. One thing that I tell the folks, you don't have to figure it out if it's for us or if it's not, that's that's our job, so please give us a call. We are public servants. We are here to serve. So it's never an issue with a question. So it's absolutely something that we would entertain. You know, councils kind of the first tier on getting those complaints, and I know a lot of times, folks contact your office. We are 100% open to any referrals that that you may give us. Okay.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank
Unknown Speaker
you. Member Walker,
Speaker 8
Thank you, Mister Chairman, so I can call you Doge
Unknown Speaker
through a chair. No man.
Speaker 8
You said you investigated fraud and abuse. I just wondered, um, so are you a proactive in your approach, with your with the your investigations, or do you, in fact, have to have someone to refer certain cases to you and so forth. I mean
Unknown Speaker
is that the only approach that you take
Speaker 12
through the chair traditionally, that has been our approach we were, and it's one of the things that I'm measuring, in terms of the change that we want to make, the difference between what we initiate on our own. We talked about the inspections and evaluations piece we talked about in previous time, doing the just being more proactive. So heretofore, yes, the office has been mostly reliant on on complaints, but we're getting away from that. We want to kind of go after it a little bit more than we have in the past, and it's something that I'm looking to measure if we're going to do it, regardless if we get the funding, and Lord knows, I pray we get it, because it would be easier for for us to do it, but it is a direction that the office is going into and if and if I probably shouldn't do his ideas aren't political. But I do want to say this about the advent of this Doge situation. For my colleagues, when this new administration came in, 12 inspector generals were fired from their job, and I think the difference between that type of organization and what
Unknown Speaker
offices of Inspector Generals do. We do it
Speaker 12
according to a code for lack of a better word, we investigate before we act. We are sure that we get it right in any kind of way and and that's the difference between offices of Inspector General and something so called the the doge or whatnot. So I think we're very different in that regard. So that's we take off my political head and I'll lay that down. Yeah.
Speaker 8
Okay, so I will say that if, if this body decides to approve your request, we will certainly be looking for measurable outcome to identify whether or not the positions that you've requested is comparable to the investigations that
Speaker 12
you're doing through chair that that's more than fair. All right. Thank you,
Unknown Speaker
Mister Chair. Thank you. Member young,
Speaker 6
let me just say, excellent presentation. You guys have always been professional. You got big shoes to fill with Miss Ha, but I have no questions. I don't want to smoke. Thank you. Thank
Unknown Speaker
you. Member. Santiago Romero,
Speaker 7
Thank you, Mister Chair. Through you. Good afternoon. The one question that I have is regarding your proactive approach, which I appreciate hearing. You want to evaluate what looks like systems and processes to make sure that we are having the best of them. We also have the Auditor General that is proactive in looking at shortfalls and how to better processes and systems to have better outputs, I guess. Can you explain the difference between what that would look like? And also, would you be able to look at our dangerous buildings process? Because this is something that I chair. There have been issues in the past, and just I feel like there's something that we can better from this process. So if that's an opportunity, that's an assignment that I have and that I ask of because I really want to be able to help residents when they're going through this process.
Speaker 12
So through through the chair. It's a excellent question council member in terms of the difference between what we do, and it may get to the other question answer you have and not be a yes because of it. So we have a particularly, I won't say it's a narrow frame, but it's that fraud, abuse, waste and corruption that's what we look into. And so when we're talking about being proactive, we're looking at vulnerabilities to fraud, abuse, waste and corruption only. So you know, waste is, is definitely a wide category of things abuse, in terms of folks not we've had cases, as you've read, where folks have not followed policy and procedure, which in depending on how it's done, we consider an abuse of position and abuse of authority. So there are allegations of those kind of things going on then, then, then where your team, but just for for general processes outside of that realm. You know, we call people on, on stepping outside of their charter mandates and those kind of things. So we believe in standing in our So, but that's the lens that we look at, the things that we do through fraud, abuse, waste and corruption
Speaker 7
through the chair. I will say that there are many residents who feel like they are going through an abusive process through the dangerous building, some of them not given enough information, not given enough time, then their homes are demolished, or their properties are demolished, or not feeling like they're getting enough supports. So let's talk and figure out if there is opportunities to use your office and your resource to look at this process. But I hear it from residents, they feel like they're getting the shorter than to stick
Speaker 12
here. Absolutely, we would love to have that discussion with you and see how we could help. Thank
Unknown Speaker
you. Thank you, Mr. President.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you. Any closing remarks, sir?
Speaker 12
No, just want to say I appreciate the support of this council and look forward to working with you all. In the five and a half months I have left in this position. We're going to try to make the most of it. Please assist me as we try to get out in the community. If there's no community group that you think would like to hear from us, please let us know we're small staff, but we're hungry to do this, so please give my office a call and we'll be there to talk to the community and like say that there's anything that you all think that that we should know about, please give us a call. It's not a bother, it's not an issue, it's what we're here for. Thank you. No thank you.
Speaker 1
Any further motions? Comments? Seeing none. Thank you so much, sir. We appreciate you and your team unit, the dig deputy. IG, all right, we're going to now open up for public comment. If there's anyone from the public who would like to speak, please raise your hand now.
Unknown Speaker
Oh, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1
Miss Barclay attorney bark, apologies. Good afternoon. This is for the IG, no, this is, this is
Unknown Speaker
general budget stuff. Hold on, I just opened
Speaker 1
up public comment. If there's anyone from the public would like to speak, please raise your hand now. Going once, going twice. I see Mr. Foster, going three times. Collection of public comments have now concluded that was important. Yes,
Speaker 14
ma'am, thank you for your time. I'm LPG is requesting that you put City Council's budget into Executive Session. There's a couple of things that we need to discuss in terms of some budgetary items. So if we're just requesting that you put City Council's budget and executive session motion, there's
Speaker 1
a motion to place City Council budget into Executive Session, seeing no objections that action shall be taken. Thank you. Alright, we shall now go to public comment, and we'll start first with our in person commenters. But first Ari, how many callers do we have online? Sir, good
Speaker 15
afternoon, Mr. President. Are nine hands raised on Zoom for public comment.
Speaker 1
Alright, good afternoon. Alright, we'll give everyone two minutes for general public for public comment. The pm won't wait till that clock gets up.
Unknown Speaker
All right, Mr. Fauci, the floor is yours. You have two
Speaker 16
minutes. Alright? Appreciate it through the Chair. Just want to give a shout out real quick to the firefighters. I was just visiting my grandmother on her way down here and over in district five on Third Street, there was some major fire there. And just to see the chaotic, saying that they must arrive to have children there and without any type of guidance. So I'm full of smoke and go in there, and I just can't ride past situations like that. And when I did call them, they was able to respond timely and take control of situations. So I did want to just acknowledge the firefighters and the work that they do. My questions for these last few budgets, as with, do it? Do they do any type of counter surveillance on citizens? Here? Are they spying on citizens? Are they exercising any type of warrantless searches? It seems to be in government, everybody's asking that you. They don't want to talk to you in person. They they request that you send emails, and with that type of request and everything is opened up. I'm not sure if this government is spying on citizens and exercise and warrantless searches for all of this technology that they are purchasing. And I see it's been a code that goes around here too. I see a lot of council members that have codes and coughs and certain points and things. I'm very observatory. Alright. Secondly, when it comes down to OIG, I do like Mr. Mirror Ball, I think that that is a very good start. I think he's brought very good presentations and and different things to this community. I'm not going to validate anybody before him, or act as if they've done this and done that. It may be beneficial to others, but as far as the community, as he said, they don't know what the IG is, and so we need to start letting the community know exactly what the Inspector General is. Overall, I appreciate the City Council. Thank you. All have been doing a good job outside some things, and keep up the good work.
Speaker 1
Thank you. We should now go to our commenters online. Who's our first call,
Speaker 15
sir? The first caller is Cindy Darra.
Speaker 1
Cindy Darragh. The floor is yours. You have two minutes general public comment. You
Unknown Speaker
Cindy Dara,
Speaker 1
alright, let's put Miss Dara at the end of the queue and go to the next caller.
Unknown Speaker
Okay, the next caller is Betty a Varner.
Speaker 1
Miss Betty a Varner, thank you for joining us. You have two minutes general public comment.
Speaker 17
Good afternoon to all within the sound of my voice. Betty a brown, the president of the soda Ellsworth black Association, asking the council to please allocate monies, or allow monies for the Detroit home accessibility program for seniors and people with disabilities, also for the senior and disabled accessibility home repair program, please allow additional money so that these programs can continue. There are a lot of seniors and disabled people who are in need. Also allow funding to assist associations and black clubs with their neighborhood park projects. We need the same type of love that's being given to the city parks. We need help with our projects, a program to allow black clubs and associations monies to help them with their projects to improve their community and their neighborhoods. Also that that monies include funding to help with the corridors that are throughout the city of Detroit that aren't being funded we need help. Also allow monies for organizations and black clubs to assist them to become a 501, c3, by allowing monies to help them pay the fees that is required by the state, allow monies to help clubs and associations for their projects, again, for the corridors, we need the funding, and also, last but not least, DeSoto Ellsworth black Association, we need monies for our diva community park, for our boulders, because landscaping boulders, because we have had theft. Part of our fence is gone and it's the eyes. So our park is we want it to be beautiful. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you. Next Caller, please.
Unknown Speaker
Next caller is Maya grace.
Speaker 1
Caller, the floor is yours. You have two minutes general public comments.
Unknown Speaker
Caller, are you there? All
Unknown Speaker
right, Ari, let's put that caller at the end of the queue and go to the next caller,
Speaker 15
please. Oh, the next caller is William M Davis. Mr.
Speaker 1
William M Davis, the floor is yours. You have two minutes general public comment.
Unknown Speaker
You Uh, hello. Can I be heard?
Unknown Speaker
Yes, sir. Okay,
Speaker 18
I'd like to start off by saying I think there needs to be a greater effort that spread out some of the authority of the Inspector General. I think that the Detroit Police Department could use an inspector general just within there. We need to be more aware of what's going on throughout the whole city. We need to utilize our funds. We need to cut down on corruption. We need to cut down on people doing things is highly questionable. That's all I have to say for today. Thank you. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker
Next Caller, please.
Unknown Speaker
The next caller is Peter,
Speaker 1
alright. Caller, the floor is yours. You have two minutes general public comment.
Speaker 18
Hey, everybody out there in shot, City of Detroit, Inspector Maribel is on the Detroit tapes. They've been released as the Detroit tapes. Now,
Unknown Speaker
Gabriella, Santiago, Romero,
Speaker 18
you came out your mouth. I guess you was trying to throw some little tarnish on me, on my name, or whatever said you read that report, lying out your teeth, lying out your mouth sideways, talking out the side of your neck. Now you didn't have that report on May the ninth. Your office said you didn't. They never received it. None of the other council people that's sitting up there with you right now received it. You gonna have to own up to that one and stop it the line. I'm stand up, dude. I got a 40 year reputation around the city of Detroit being stand up 100 you don't know me because I moved like I move, but I
Unknown Speaker
tangled with the best of them.
Speaker 18
I say that wholeheartedly and honestly, and you ain't even in my league, so you need to come clean and then starting new with a clean slate. Now James Tate, you called Kenisha mother, and you said what you said about me. I don't take kindly to no man, especially one like you, speaking bad on my name, talking about I'm not the right representative. That's why I'm getting ready to demonstrate on you exactly what I really am and what I'm really about, my word.
Speaker 1
All right. Thank you. Ruben James Crowley, Jr, next caller, please. Next
Unknown Speaker
caller is we see you. Call or the floor
Unknown Speaker
is yours. You have two minutes general public comment,
Speaker 19
good afternoon and through the chair map, yes, thank you. It was very interesting the OIG, but I needed to ask them some questions about why they report to the city council for I did place a report or a complaint against the city council, and Miss Santiago Romero let me know that she knew that I had I think it's improper for them to report anything to you if I'm complaining about you. Council member Johnson should not get a report on who I'm complaining about, I think we need to take you out of the picture all together, and we need to have another reporting mechanism. I agree with Mr. Davis that we absolutely need an OIG over the just the police department. We have too many things going on with the police department and with the city departments. And, frankly, they're ineffective. If they're going to report to you, if you know what is going on, that's that's not, that's not a good thing, because many, many of what is going on is because you are allowing it to go on. So you're you, so you're part of the problem. So why would we want to report to you anything that we're doing in terms of trying to find corrections, and I hope that that Mr. Marwell is Doge, I hope he does remove the fraud and abuse that's going on in this city, because it's it's rough and bye, bye, Miss Romero, I know you don't want to hear it. Talk to you later. Face, alright, all right.
Unknown Speaker
Next Caller, please, let me stop. Let me stop.
Unknown Speaker
The next caller is you matter. Call of the floor
Unknown Speaker
is yours? You have two minutes? General public comment,
Speaker 20
yes, good afternoon. May I be heard? Yes. Okay, so we got a problem with BC and the department administrative hearings. I got another collector's notice in the mail. Then supposedly I got a ticket in November, except I was never given the ticket. My neighbor never saw the ticket. So, and then I've asked about that through the ombudsman's office, through member Sheffield's office, to look into this matter. Now, remember, she's office is finally looking into it, but this ticket was for a lot that developed Detroit's people, per my neighbor, I knew somebody illegally dumped some dirt, but I didn't know who one of my neighbors saw. Said they were contractor types, and then another neighbor said that that was developed Detroit's people. So I've already tried to communicate with the city that I've got issues with that lot, because there's a big mound of dirt, so it's hard to mow on it, and things like that. So I really wish the city would work with people, because if you look at the Blight to beauty program, which is a nice thing along the corridors, but it says we're not trying to penalize people. We want to work with people reach out and do something about it. So why isn't BC giving everybody a warning, because you can't do blight to beauty in the quarters work with people, and so as long as they respond right away. And people could have good reasons, they could be out of town taking care of a loved one. You could be you need a new part for your lawn mower. I mean, who knows, but you should be working with people, and instead of seeking to gouge them for money, because the Department of hearings, they did say, Oh, we're not about raising money. And that brings me back to the transcript issue. Do you all really approve of $6.75
Unknown Speaker
a page for BCA transcripts? Will you please answer?
Unknown Speaker
Thank you so much next caller, please.
Speaker 15
The next caller is Rhonda Adams.
Speaker 1
Rhonda Adams, thank you for joining us. You have two minutes general public comment,
Speaker 21
yes, hi. I wanted to just elaborate on one of the things that do I G brought out that they made an agreement in reference to back issues, not dealing with those. One of the one of the concerns I have, I noticed it was still 15 open from back issues, you have to deal with it. One of the main concerns that we have, that the community have, is, in essence, to this bankruptcy debt that's owed that billion dollar debt, and how it is illegal, and how it has, how it can still be tended to. So I think you need to look a little bit more deeper. I know it was kind of close that they even kept the oigs in office, but we really are tuned in to see whether or not you're going to whatever agreement you may and what the policy is in that I know that the council will follow up on some of these issues, because what's looked back at is really keeping us in the hole, so we need to look at it a little deeper. And it is, you know, something that. Yeah, you need to delve into that a little deeper. And then also we, you know, we have to figure out a way to have all the privacy issues when it comes to our data centers looked at, and it's if they're encrypted, if they are, who's who holding that source. I know the security may be there just to look on the outside, but the internal encryption and who is handling that source? If it's iCloud, then it's basically everyone. So you need to really dive in deeper
Unknown Speaker
with the media and see who's,
Unknown Speaker
you know the gatekeepers, as they called it.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you. Next Caller, please.
Speaker 1
We're back to the last caller who raised their hand for public comment with
Speaker 22
Cindy Dara, all right. Miss Cindy Dara, the floor is yours. You
Unknown Speaker
have two minutes general public
Unknown Speaker
comment. Miss Dara, are you there?
Unknown Speaker
Cindy Dara, going
Unknown Speaker
once,
Unknown Speaker
going twice,
Unknown Speaker
on three times.
Unknown Speaker
Cindy Dara, are you there?
Speaker 1
Unfortunately, we're going to have to move on. If you would like to provide your comments to the clerk's office, they will be placed onto public record. Alright, colleagues, that takes us to our the end of the public hearings for today. Want to remind the public that we do have hearings tomorrow that begin at 10am with the Department of Public Works and get their motion. are a motion to adjourn today's hearings as
Speaker 22
a motion. Hearing of objections that action shall be taken. This meeting is adjourned.