DHS urges continued investment as city council probes staffing, licensing and juvenile diversion

Commissioner Kimberly Ali told Philadelphia City Council's Committee of the Whole that the Department of Human Services's proposed FY2027 general fund allocation is $235 million, including roughly $4.44 million in new funding, and framed the request around reducing child welfare placements and strengthening prevention and diversion.

"My name is Kimberly Ali. I'm commissioner for the Philadelphia Department of Human Services," Ali said, opening her testimony and describing DHS as the county's child welfare and juvenile justice agency with about 1,500 employees. She highlighted achievements since 2020, including a drop in children in placement from 5,111 to 2,258 and a reported 56% reduction in the number of children in care compared with the 2020 high point.

The testimony emphasized diversion and in-home services. Ali said DHS provided prevention services to more than 1,700 families in FY2025 and currently has 1,464 children receiving services at home. She noted that 40% of children in placement are in kinship care, above the national average, and that only 7.4% of youth in placement are in residential child-welfare placements, lower than state and national averages.

Why it matters: Council members pressed DHS on whether those improvements justify proposed staffing reductions and whether service quality is at risk. Several members noted a roughly 20% vacancy rate in DHS and asked how the department can reduce 25 long-term social work positions while still meeting caseload demands.

Ali replied that vacancies are concentrated among social work service managers and youth-detention counselors and that reductions were possible because the placement population has fallen markedly. She said a sizable portion of prevention and diversion work is delivered by community providers rather than DHS caseworkers, allowing the department to "rightsize" some staffing while keeping services in place.

Licensing and oversight: Ali told the committee the department faced state oversight after an incident at the Philadelphia Juvenile Justice Services Center (PJSC). She said the PJSC received a provisional license March 27, 2025 following a disturbance during a boxing viewing, but that the facility's full license was restored the day before the hearing. Separately, the state placed the child-welfare side on provisional license May 9, 2025; DHS has appealed and remains under six-month monitoring while the appeal proceeds.

"We were not in agreement of a provisional license status and so we did file an appeal," Ali said, noting the department had only one citation on recent monitoring and expected work toward restoration.

Emergency shelter funding and procurement: Council members sought detail on an $8.66 million youth emergency shelter line in the FY27 plan that listed no vendor. CFO Naen Paresi said an RFP is active and that the larger FY27 number reflects additional state funding that phases in after a start-up year (FY25 outlays for similar services were about $2.78 million). DHS said it expects to identify a vendor before the end of the fiscal year.

Juvenile justice and diversion: Ali cited system-level reductions tied to citywide diversion launched in January 2025, reporting a 16% drop in juvenile arrests from calendar-year 2024 to 2025 and a 13% reduction in PJSC population over the same period. She said the PJSC then held 94 youth (facility capacity 184) at the time of testimony.

Payment timing, contracts and pay: The department reported about 287 professional services contracts and said it achieved a 93% conformance rate in Q1 FY26; DHS said accurate invoices are typically paid within 21 days after conformance and controller review. Council members pushed for clearer data on the gap between conformance and actual payout and pressed DHS about salary levels for social work staff. Ali said the starting civil-service step for a social-work service manager II is about $62,000 (step five ~$80,000) and said negotiations with central HR and unions are underway to address investigator pay and retention.

What happens next: The hearing provided council members a record of DHS' outcomes, outstanding state oversight matters, and budget lines that will be revisited in committee as the FY27 budget process continues. DHS said it will supply follow-up materials on contract payment timing, provisional-license monitoring outcomes and vendor selection for emergency shelter services.