What's a budget supposed to do, anyway?

Last month, Philadelphia City Council and Mayor Jim Kenney struck a deal to pass the City of Philadelphia’s $5.3 billion budget for FY2022. With Philadelphia on pace for its highest number of homicides ever in 2021, much of the media focus was centered on the $155 million allocated for violence prevention, including a growing consensus for the importance of evaluating the public’s investment in violence prevention programs. Unfortunately, there was no discussion of a fundamental flaw in the way the City of Philadelphia presents its operating budget to the public: the budget doesn’t actually explain how much it costs to deliver a single city service.  

But, isn’t that what budgets are supposed to do? It’ll be a little wonky, but I can explain why the City’s budget doesn’t do the thing you think it’s supposed to do. I’ll start by asking a question: how much does it cost to operate the Free Library of Philadelphia? As advocates called for increased funding for the 54-branch system last month, the Free Library’s FY2021 budget was cited as $39.3 million and it’s FY2020 budget was indicated to be $45.7 million. Are these numbers correct? The first place to look is the Finance Department website, where anyone can access a wide range of budget and financial reports. I looked for the ‘Budget in Brief,’ which summarizes the City's annual operating budget. The most recently available Budget in Brief was for the FY2020 Adopted Budget, which is budget nerd speak for the City Council approved operating budget for July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020. During that fiscal year, the Free Library’s General Fund budget was $45.8 million, matching the number cited earlier. I was surprised, however, that the Free Library’s budget was presented with just three simple categories: Personal Services (the cost of people), Purchase of Services (the cost of contracts and services), and Materials, Supplies, and Equipment (the cost of stuff).

For greater detail on what is included in these categories, I turned to the Operating Budget Detail, a budget nerd's dream with so much information that it is split into two 1,200-page tombs. With the assistance of CTRL+F, I found the same $45.8 million for the Free Library’s budget, but I found something else as well: a line for Employee Benefits with no information. It turns out that Personal Services only includes salaries and wages, while the cost of medical insurance, pension contributions, and other types of non-cash compensation commonly referred to as "fringe benefits" for current employees fall under Employee Benefits.

As a public sector consultant looking at city budgets across the country, I know other big cities – New York, Chicago, and Houston – all include fringe benefits in their departmental budgets. Some cities, like Seattle, even include indirect operating costs for things like rent and utilities. The combination of these direct and indirect costs provides a complete picture of what it actually costs to run a department and/or deliver a service. Why don’t we do the same? There is a straightforward reason: fringe benefits are managed centrally through the Finance Department, so the $1.4 billion cost for these benefits citywide is housed within the Finance Department rather than with individual departments. As a result, it is unclear how 28 percent of the City’s budget is spent.

It makes sense for significant benefits like healthcare to be managed centrally, especially because the City is a self-insured organization that assumes the financial risk of paying for health benefits. A centralized system can be a good management practice with more robust controls by subject matter experts and strong accountability. It is also true that the City budgets using large expenditure classes, which combine multiple related costs and provide management flexibility, while many local and state governments use line-item budgets, which tend to focus on control. One significant benefit of a line-item budget, however, is that it provides a detailed breakdown of the specific costs for operating a department that delivers services to residents (see Pittsburgh’s police budget example below).

While there are debatable strengths and weaknesses for how the City manages its budget in practice, there is no debate that the City’s budget doesn’t accurately reflect the cost of operating any City department. Let’s look at two charts that will help illustrate the problem.

First, we have a pie chart that shows the City’s FY20 $5 billion General Fund budget. More than 40 percent of the budget is consumed by three slices of the pie: Pensions ($749 million or 15 percent), Police ($741 million or 15 percent), and Other Employee Benefits ($663 million or 13 percent). Looking at this chart, it would make sense to believe that running the Police Department costs $741 million and represents 15 percent of the General Fund budget.

The second chart shows the same FY20 General Fund budget by expenditure type, and the picture is different. It shows that total Personnel Costs are $3.2 billion, or 64% of the total operating budget. The $1.4 billion cost of Pensions and Other Employee Benefits is the same here as in the previous chart and matches the amount that is housed in the Finance Department’s budget. The main difference is that it consolidates the salary costs that were spread across departments in the first chart, showing a total of $1.8 billion citywide. As a result, we can see that the citywide total of $1.4 billion for benefits is equivalent to 76 percent of citywide salary and wage costs. 

Let’s go back to the Free Library’s $45.8 million budget. Most of the budget is Personal Services – salaries and wages for employees – at $40.6 million. There is no budget or financial document on the City’s website where you can find the full cost of Employee Benefits for the Free Library or any other department,[1] but we can guestimate. Using the citywide ratio that the cost of benefits is equivalent to 76 percent of the cost of salaries, the Free Library’s benefits costs would be $30.9 million, which would bring the Free Library's total budget to $76.7 million. Confirming a precise number for the Free Library’s benefits costs requires more detailed math and accurate data, but one external source suggests it’s a reasonable guess. Every year, the Library Journal releases an index comparing public libraries across the country.  Its most recent release in December 2020 compared library systems based on data from FY2018, and the Free Library lists staff costs of $40.7 million for salaries and $37 million for benefits, for a total staff cost of $77.7 million. So, while I can’t be sure of the exact personnel cost for the Free Library in FY20, it seems reasonable that total personnel costs could be somewhere in the ballpark of $75 million instead of the $40.6 million listed.

This guestimate shows how much current budget reporting deflates the actual cost of operating a department, especially the City’s two large public safety departments. If the same 76% benefit ratio is applied, the Police Department's personnel budget would be $1.3 billion instead of $774 million and the Fire Department's personnel budget would be $506.7 million instead of $331 million. Again, the actual math on these costs would be tricky, especially since Pew and the Economy League detailed more than a decade ago the cost of health insurance per person for Police and Fire was 34 percent and 48 percent higher, respectively, than the cost for other City workers, These types of substantial differences in costs between departments are even more reason why the budget should allocate costs by department.

But let’s assume that the budget showed all personnel costs by department, would we have a “full” picture of how much it costs to run a department? Not exactly. Even if a department budget included precise amounts for benefits, the costs for centralized functions like fleet management, human resources, or information technology are not allocated by department. Without including full cost allocation for these and other indirect operating costs, we simply don’t know the true costs to run a department or deliver a service.    

After spending more than 1,300 words explaining how the City's budget does not paint a complete picture of what it costs to run City government, I must acknowledge the elephant in the room: does it even matter? If the budget showed full costs by department, would anyone besides a small group of policy wonks even care? As a friend, mentor, and local government expert put it to me, “the average Philadelphian is interested in how many police officers or librarians are in a department to provide public safety or deliver services and less about the healthcare and other compensation costs.” I agree completely with that sentiment, and that is why we need to know how much these departments cost to operate.

Our public discourse about City services should be rooted in a value proposition: do we believe the quality of services and the outcomes they produce are worth our investment of public resources? Considering the City’s budget has increased more than $1 billion in the last five years without tangibly moving the needle on Philadelphia’s biggest challenges, it is imperative that we clarify the levels of service we want and how much we are willing to spend to get there. In a city with an extensive list of long-term challenges, how can we decide on the most effective solutions if we can't compare costs, effectiveness, and make trade-offs? We can’t even begin to have an outcomes-focused public conversation to address our challenges if we don’t know how much it truly costs to deliver services.

Let’s look at two charts that demonstrate how clear and accurate cost allocation and reporting could help shape our priorities. The chart below from Pew’s report on the costs of City government shows how much we spend per capita on major city services. Based on the well-worn cliché which contends "a budget is a moral document" that reflects our values, we value Police 750% more than Parks and Recreation ($517 vs. $69 per capita), and 975% more than Libraries ($517 vs. $53 per capita).

Given this level of investment, are we satisfied with quality of services and the outcomes they produce? If not, are there investments we can make outside of the Police Department to make our neighborhoods safer? Portions of the $155 million for violence prevention in the FY2021 budget will support evidence-based strategies such as increasing green space, hiring outreach workers, or funding structured youth programming, resulting in more resources for Parks and Recreation and the Free Library. Hopefully, the newly formed Violence Prevention and Opportunity review committee evaluation of these investments can be an important step towards a budget more focused on outcomes than staffing. And if we knew how much it costs to run each City department, it could facilitate meaningful public discourse about where and how we invest our hard-earned public resources.

The second chart, based on data from 2015, shows the average wages for City employees who deliver most services. Police officers and firefighters earned more than $80,000 per year in wages, compared to less than $60,000 per year for most other City employees. Add in the average cost of benefits, and it is plausible that the total cost of one public safety employee could equal 1.5 or more non-public safety employee. If we had an idea of how much an average police officer or a librarian costs, for example, it would make for robust, outcomes-focused civic engagement for the budget.

Let’s say that the cost of 1 police officer or 1 firefighter is equivalent to 1.5 employees for all other City departments. In this scenario, a reduction in 50 police officers and a reduction of 50 firefighters could fund 75 new employees for the Free Library and 75 new employees for Parks and Recreation who could be force multipliers for the recent violence prevention investments. Using the same illustrative assumptions, 50 less police officers could fund 75 crisis workers who could provide the type of socio-medical response required for people dealing with “substance abuse, homelessness or other personal crises” that police officers are not trained to provide. Considering these types of incidents are almost one of every ten 911 calls from the public, this strategy could help reduce calls for service for the Police Department and free up police officers to spend more time preventing violent crime. Continuing with this scenario, 50 less firefighters could fund 75 more sanitation workers to help collect trash on time and ease the burden on the Streets Department’s workforce.

I am not advocating for these specific public policy strategies, but I believe that we – residents, elected officials, activists…everyone – should have clear, straightforward information about how much City government truly costs so we can thoughtfully and honestly make public investments in our present and our future. So, what should we do about it? There are, in fact, some simple steps we can take to foster more “truth in budgeting” in Philadelphia:

• Departmental Cost Allocation for People: Allocate the cost for pensions, healthcare, and other fringe benefits by department in the City's budget and other financial reports. This would give the public a clear, simple, and transparent way to understand how $2 of every $3 for the operating budget is spent.

• Departmental Cost Allocation for Centralized Services: The City should present departmental budgets with a full cost allocation model that combines direct costs like salaries or supplies with indirect or “overhead” costs like facility maintenance or information technology. Among many benefits, the most crucial outcome of cost allocation would be to holistically account for the cost of city services being provided.

• Job Function Cost Overviews: Develop a simple method for displaying the average cost for core job functions of City government, such as police officers, firefighters, librarians, social workers, and sanitation workers. This simple one-pager details the full cost of a police officer in Chicago of $149,362, including benefits and indirect supervisory costs. These overviews would be the answer to “how much does a librarian cost?” and could be a valuable civic engagement tool for educating the public on the budget.

These changes alone won’t solve Philadelphia’s most challenging problems, but they can serve as vehicles on the road to finding solutions that are rooted in transparency, collaboration, and civic engagement. We have to start these conversations somewhere, and we might as well start with a budget that does the things it is supposed to do.

[1] Some departments have estimated employee benefits costs for specific programs, reported on form 71-53P. This information, however, is not a full illustration of department-wide employee benefits costs and many departments do not yet provide this type of program-level detail.

How “Under Pressure” Can Teach Us to Love

Pressure pushing down on me
Pressing down on you, no man ask for
Under pressure that burns a building down
Splits a family in two
Puts people on streets

I can't think of a better forward to pop epic than the opening fourteen bars of the Queen and David Bowie classic Under Pressure. That iconic bass line is the foundation, framed by hushed hi-hats, finger snaps, and handclaps. Brian May's meandering lead guitar follows a few naked A and D piano chords. The kettle is steaming, but it isn't yet whistling when Freddie Mercury's baritone scatting ties everything together in a bow of attentive lusciousness. By the time the snare hits and we hear the opening "pressure," we're locked in for three minutes and thirty seconds of musical magic.

Under Pressure is one of those songs that is never too far away. It is a karaoke staple. It was sampled by one of the biggest one-hit wonders of the last forty years. It's been used to sell just about any product imaginable. It is so familiar that it's easy to lose sight of the song's radical message. In a world where more people live in the margins, we must see and value the humanity of the people "living on the edge of the night" as much as ourselves.

Turned away from it all like a blind man
Sat on a fence but it don't work
Keep coming up with love but it's so slashed and torn

How can anyone listen to David Bowie's earnest vocals in the song's final act and not believe that the world needs something more than love, sweet love? In a biblical sense, Under Pressure is an anthemic contemplation of 1 John 3:17-18. "How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action."

Cause love's such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love (people on streets) dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves

Recorded almost forty years ago, Under Pressure is still as poignant as ever. 2020 has been a year unlike any other, and almost everyone has felt that pressure in some part of their life. The pressure is mounting for the millions of Americans already on the margins long before the Covid-19 pandemic and recession. Thankfully, some people and organizations don't sit on the fence, but they are under pressure too. To love in truth and action, I am making a financial contribution to two nonprofits that dare to change the way we care about ourselves. And I am asking you to consider joining me in that support.

Youth Sentencing and Reentry Project works to keep children out of adult jails and prisons, and to bring home people who were sentenced as children to life in prison without the possibility of parole. YSRP recently developed Intergenerational Healing Circles to center healing from trauma and to build power among young Black men and former Juvenile Lifers who share the experience of being prosecuted as teenagers in the adult justice system. Click here to help make more Intergenerational Healing Circles possible.

Youth Service, Inc. has provided immediate shelter and support services to Philadelphia's children, youth, and families for over 67 years, including Philadelphia's only Crisis Nursery program and the area's oldest shelter for runaway and homeless teens. This recent CBS3 story highlights the work YSI does to support young people like Donnell Powell, who left the foster system without consistent housing or employment. Click here to help YSI support more young people like Donnell.

Can't we give ourselves one more chance?
Why can't we give love that one more chance?
Why can't we give love?

We can still give love one more chance in 2020. Gifts or donations of any type would help both YSRP and YSI continue their essential work. No gift is too small to have an impact. If you prefer to support another worthy organization, thank you for loving in truth and action. And if you are unable to donate at the moment, there is always next year. I have a feeling that 2021 is going to need all the love we can give.

This is ourselves under pressure
Under pressure
Pressure

Don't Boo, Get Counted!

With a poverty rate of 24.9 percent, Philadelphia was the nation’s poorest big city before the Covid-19 pandemic rocked our communities and economy. Philadelphia has almost 34,000 confirmed cases and has lost 1,767 of its citizens (unsurprisingly, Black Philadelphians have been hit the hardest by the pandemic). Thousands of students without access to computers or the internet to finish the school year virtually. A hospitality industry that employed 10 percent of Philadelphia's workforce lost 43,000 jobs from March to April, a 56 percent decline (and is still missing roughly 30,000 jobs from its March levels). As painful as these and other pandemic impacts have been, there will be more pain to come.

We haven’t yet reached the point in the recession where the City of Philadelphia – $750 million pandemic-induced hole – will be forced to choose from a menu of lousy austerity measures to balance its budget. SEPTA hasn’t yet implemented drastic service reductions even though the agency projects its severe ridership decline to result in a $300 million loss across FY20 and FY21. The PHL COVID-19 Fund, a partnership between the Philadelphia Foundation, United Way, and the City, raised and distributed more than $17 million to more than 500 regional nonprofits. However, more than one in four Philadelphia nonprofits expect funding disruptions will limit their cash flow and cause staff layoffs or furloughs over the next 6-12 months. That is not good news for a sector where many organizations already had a weak financial position.

Overshadowing these complicated and inter-related challenges at the local level is uncertainty about the continued federal funding for vital recovery benefits such as unemployment insurance, SNAP, and direct stimulus payments. The Urban Institute recently projected that these federal resources would keep more than 10 million people out of poverty through the end of the year, leading to a national poverty rate of 9.2 percent instead of 12.4 percent. The Brookings Institution recently outlined why a weak economic foundation, long-standing racial and spatial inequities, and fragile education, workforce, and small business support systems pose severe challenges for equitable recoveries in legacy cities like Philadelphia.

There isn’t much that the average Philadelphian can do to combat these systemic challenges. We can't keep our cloudy future from turning into a storm. Still, there is something each of us can do so our most vulnerable residents can find an umbrella when the rain comes: complete the 2020 Census.

That’s right, the Census. No act of civic engagement would contribute more to our pandemic recovery than a complete and accurate count of Philadelphia’s population. Every year, almost $1 trillion in federal funding for healthcare, education, infrastructure, economic development, and more is allocated based on Census data. The Census determines the amount of funding supporting disenfranchised and vulnerable Philadelphians through programs like SNAP, Pell Grants, the National School Lunch Program, and Section 8 Housing Vouchers. Philadelphia receives more than $3 billion annually in funding for these and other vital programs. And for every Philadelphian that isn’t counted, the city could lose out on $21,000 over the next decade.

Over the last year, I supported the National Association of Counties’ development of issue briefs that provide practical strategies to help local officials achieve a complete and accurate count. Making It Count, published last fall, focused on how local government officials could organize their Complete Count Committees and establish partnerships with trusted community partners. Achieving a Complete Count During a Pandemic, published earlier this month, identifies common themes from county leaders and subject matter experts on how the pandemic has impacted local Census efforts and how local leaders have adjusted their strategies to respond to obstacles that may limit an accurate and complete count.

In doing this work, I gained a new perspective on the complexity of executing a Census that had a myriad of obstacles that were likely to limit the count well before the Covid-19 pandemic. The nation's first online Census launched when almost 20 million Americans lack access to broadband internet and increased concerns about cybersecurity after the debate concerning Russian interference in the 2016 election. Even though the Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration's controversial proposal to add a question asking each respondent to identify their citizenship status, it stoked fears about participating throughout immigrant communities across the country. The Census Bureau already planned to have fewer offices and staff than it did in 2010 and was well behind schedule for hiring and training before the winter holidays. Once the Covid-19 pandemic emerged, it shut down Census operations just as fieldwork was starting. It also made the enumeration process - when Census takers knock on the doors of households that have not responded  - frightening and potentially dangerous.

The truth is that we were never going to reach a complete count before the pandemic. The pandemic made reaching hard to count populations – particularly children under five, low-income and lower-educated communities, English language learners and undocumented immigrants, and racial minorities – even more difficult. When the Census Bureau announced last month that data collection would end on September 30 instead of its previously revised October 31 deadline, it all but ensured that we would end up with a severe undercount that will specifically disadvantage Black and Brown communities.

If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably wondering how Philadelphia is doing? In a few words: not good. As of August 28, 53.3 percent of Philadelphia households completed the Census, a response rate that trails the national response rate of 64.7 percent, the Pennsylvania response rate of 67.6 percent, and Philadelphia’s final 2010 response rate of 62.4 percent. Unsurprisingly, most big cities across the country have response rates that fall short of the national average and 2010 performance. Unfortunately, Philadelphia is fairing worse than many of our peers compared to a group of the 30 largest cities nationwide.

Cities like Seattle, Denver, Austin, and San Francisco - with populations that are Whiter, more educated, and more affluent than Philadelphia – have higher response rates than Philadelphia.  However, Philadelphia currently trails cities with more similar demographics like Chicago, New York, Houston, and Baltimore. 

Philadelphia’s comparatively low use of internet-response stands out as a particular challenge. Slightly more than one in four Philadelphia households that have completed the Census have used the phone or mail. Only Baltimore has a higher proportion of its respondents that have used the phone or mail options.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Five maps illustrate the challenges we face better than any additional analysis can. The first map shows racial segregation by Census tract in Philadelphia, the second map shows poverty rates by zip code, and the third map shows household internet access by Census tract. The fourth map shows the response rates by Census tract in Philadelphia. Areas with higher response rates are shaded in blue, and those with lower response rates are shaded in tan/brown. The fifth map also shows response rates by Census tract but identifies the communities in purple with response rates in the bottom 20 percent nationally.

Source: New York Times

Source: The Pew Charitable Trusts

Source: Urban Observatory

Source: CUNY Mapping Service at the Center for Urban Research

Source: CUNY Mapping Service at the Center for Urban Research

See a pattern? The overlap between the communities where most Black and Brown Philadelphian's live – many in neighborhoods with high levels of poverty and low levels of internet access – and communities with low levels of Census participation is undeniable. These deep-rooted structural inequities were hard to overcome before the Covid-19 pandemic limited local outreach efforts dependent on events and in-person contact to build awareness. 

Philly Counts, the group leading our local Census efforts, has done practically everything they can to get folks counted. From March to June, phone banking volunteers made more than 100,000 calls and had over 14,000 conversations. They distributed door hangers, yard signs, and all types of swag. They held virtual events Like a #MakeBlackCount conversation in partnership with the Urban League or a virtual happy hour with We The People. They partnered with elected officials to lead caravans that traveled through neighborhoods with low response rates. They implemented strategies Covid-19 response strategies like expanding digital access through meal distribution sites.  And they worked with a diverse group of partner organizations like Bebashi,  Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture, the Korean American Association of Greater Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging to promote participation throughout Philadelphia's diverse communities. 

Local leaders demonstrated their commitment to a complete and accurate count as well. Mayor Kenney launched Philly Counts in January 2019, more than a year before the Census got underway, with 12 dedicated staff members and six paid fellows. The City partnered with the Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia and the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey to create the Philly Counts Action Fund, which distributed grants from $2,500 to $25,000 to support organizations' Census outreach efforts, especially in hard to count communities. With the United Way’s pledge to match the first $400,000 in donations dollar for dollar, the Action Fund raised and distributed more than $700,000 in grants to 83 community partner organizations through the end of 2019.

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic cannot be overstated. Our collective public attention was focused on daily briefings and rising case counts when the Census should have been front and center. Local philanthropy rightly shifted its focus to supporting nonprofit service providers hit hard by the virus. Even Philly Counts staff shifted their focus to the City’s Covid-19 response efforts as ensuring the health and safety of our citizens became the priority.

It’s up to us now. If you haven’t completed the Census yet, do it right now. Make sure your family, friends, and neighbors are counted as well. Do you know how President Obama loves to say, “Don’t boo, vote!”? It's kind of like that. As we move into a future riddled with uncertainty, Philadelphia's recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and economic recession will be even more difficult if we don't have our fair share of critical federal resources that support the most vulnerable members of our communities.

Don’t boo, get counted!

Anger, Grief and Gratitude: Celebrating Pop on His First Heavenly Birthday

“Ain’t this a bitch!” I yelled as my girlfriend, the police officer, and the church security guard looked on in the shadow of the Sunday morning sun. I had every intention of moving my car by the prescribed time when I parked on Saturday night, I even set an alarm to remind myself to move the car by 9:30 the following morning from the 30-minute loading zone by the church on our block. My girlfriend Edisa and I were getting ready to go for a run that morning, and I went down to the car to load my bag with a few minutes to spare. Then I realized I left my sunglasses upstairs and had a decision to make: move the car first or take a chance that I wouldn’t get a ticket in the time it took to ran back upstairs and find the sunglasses. Very much out of character, I chose the latter. When I returned back to the car at 9:41, there was a police officer sitting in his cruiser, telling me that somebody from the church had called to report it and it was too late for him to stop writing the ticket. 11 minutes? I couldn’t get an 11-minute cushion? Someone from the church called the cops on me even though I made a genuine effort to play the rules?

One uncharacteristic decision led to an even more uncharacteristic outburst. Slammed doors. Thrown keys. Loud cursing. I exploded in a fit of self-righteous rage. The police officer calmly handed me the ticket, said “have a nice day”, and walked back to his car. I was too angry to notice what the security guard was doing. But it was pretty clear that Edisa was terrified as we got in to the car, and slamming the gas pedal as we pulled out didn’t help matters. A few minutes later we parked and had one of those conversations where you’re both in the front seats of the car, but only one of you looks at the other.

What was that all about? She wanted to know and, deservedly so, kept asking questions so she could make some sense of why her 6’2, 240 Ib boyfriend just lost it on a public street corner over a $31 parking ticket. In what felt like 10 minutes but probably only 30 seconds, I vented a laundry list of emotion that I didn’t realize was pent up inside of me. I was tired of feeling like I was operating at 80% capacity. I was tired of sitting around and taking things slow. I was tired of feeling physically tired all the time. I didn’t want to be emotionally compassionate to myself anymore. I wanted to get back to accomplishing things and feeling like myself again. And that’s when it started to become clear that none of what happened that morning was about a parking ticket. It was about Pop. It had only been a few months since my dad, Herb Arlene, died unexpectedly on December 12, 2019. My family came together and our village rallied around us, and I received displays of love and concern that I will cherish for the rest of my life. But eventually the world moved on, and on that beautiful day in late February I realized that my unchartered journey through grief and loss was going to be more difficult than I imagined. My anger that day felt amazing and I didn’t want to let it go; anger is a great way for an aggrieved son to feel like he was back in control. But I wasn’t in control, and once the anger subsided, the existential pain set in: what will I do and who will I be if I no longer have a father to make proud?

A quick google search helped me understand that everything I’d been feeling was quite normal. I wasn’t alone in feeling anger and existential anxiety, but now I was socially distanced as a very important day approached. A few months ago, my sister Michelle realized that Pop’s birthday - April 12 - would fall on Easter Sunday, and our family decided that we would gather together for church and maybe even visit him now that the marker at his grave has been placed. But since the coronavirus pandemic has upended all of our lives, I’d have to celebrate him in my own way. He would have turned 85 on Resurrection Sunday and it was my first April 12 without him. Pop was a man of action, so I decided to celebrate his birthday by doing some of things that he taught me through his example. I woke up early, put on some gospel music, and cleaned our apartment. Like take the food out of the fridge and wash the shelves clean. I was standing next to an open fridge with Clorox in my hand and tears trickling down my face when my sister Daphne called to check on me. I talked to my big cousin Mike, who knows what it’s like to lose your guide star. I attended Easter service via Zoom with Edisa (sitting next to me) and my mom, Lois (sitting at home in Mt. Airy). I called my Aunt Clara, who spoke with Pop every day, and my Aunt Josie. For the first time in over a decade I ran the 8.5-mile Kelly Drive loop. Since there was no family Easter dinner, I tried my hand at making some soul food for the first time (yes, the women in my family have SPOILED ME): baked mac and cheese, sweet potatoes, ham and friend chicken wings. After dinner, I poured two glasses of VO whiskey, but only drank one.

This morning, I decided to put on Kind of Blue - with Pop, it was never just “Miles Davis”, it was always “Miles DEWEY Davis” to really emphasis his greatness - and write this reflection. And I also decided I would share the eulogy I wrote for Pop back in December.  The theme of those remarks is centered on gratitude, and after four months without him, I still feel grateful. I’m grateful that our family and friends had the opportunity to mourn and celebrate together, when so many folks now must mourn their lost loved ones alone, without being able to celebrate and grieve with their family, friends and community. I’m grateful to have a mother who has been an open and vulnerable partner in grief, and to have sisters who call to check on me when I don’t do the same as much as I should. I’m grateful to have an empathetic girlfriend who is committed to figuring out how to support her introverted partner when space and time may be more helpful than a hug. I’m grateful that police officer didn’t take offense to my rage that day, because so many others haven’t received such compassion from public authority when their emotions got the better of them. And I will forever be grateful for Herb Arlene, Jr.

Family Remarks for Herb Arlene, Jr.

December 20, 2019

You know, my dad used to say that when his time came, that we should just take him out to Rolling Green, play some Earth, Wind and Fire, and call it day. While he was often at the center of the conversation, I’m not sure my dad was all that comfortable being celebrated. But he was a man who lived a life that deserves celebration, so I am grateful for the friends and family who have joined us today to celebrate. And I am also grateful to Mount Tabor AME Church for opening their doors to us on such short notice to allow us to celebrate in your home.

I promise that I won’t take up too much of your time, but since I’m Herb Arlene’s son, you know I had to say a few words about my old man. As my Aunt Clara put it, he was a real son of a gun, and he was the driving force in my life. Whether it was singing in my high school choir, waking up before sunrise to workout, or even joining the Army, I’ve been in on a 37-year journey to be like Herb Arlene. Over the last week I’ve reflected a lot on my dad’s influence on my life and what it actually means to be like Herb Arlene. And I kept coming back to the idea of values. Defined as a person's principles or standards of behavior, or one's judgment of what is important in life, my dad was a man who lived his values every day. As much as my dad enjoyed a lively conversation, the way his lived his life emphasized that being about it is more important than talking about it. And while there are a number of values that guided how my father lived his life, there are four that are particularly meaningful for how they influenced my quest to be like my dad:

Joy, Service, Pride and Gratitude.

If you met my dad, you know he was a man who lived every day with joy in his heart and did his best to share that joy with others. Whether it was the way his laugh boomed when he was really cracking up, the twinkle in his eye when he figured out how to add some new information to a story he’d been telling for 30 years, or the way he’d smile at you and say “hey, baby!” when it had been too long since he’d seen you last, he did his best to bring to smile to your face. Any of his kids and grandkids can tell you that if one of his favorite Whispers or Earth, Wind and Fire songs came on the radio while he was driving, his hands would be clapping instead of on the wheel and you were getting at least one emphatic “YES!” every 30 seconds. And the man could make friends just about anywhere – waiting room at the doctor’s office, walking to play his numbers and go to Wawa, sitting in the audience at his granddaughter’s graduation – because he understood the power that a smile and a two-minute conversation could have. And he had a lot of two-minute conversations.

My father demonstrated that service – and in particular the value of selfless service – could be lived in ways large and small. In 1958 he was drafted into the United States Army, and while he was not initially too excited about heading to Fort Jackson for basic training, serving his country with men from around the country became so meaningful to him that he considered making it a career. But as his enlistment was winding down, my great-grandmother Clara Davis passed, and he felt that returning home to be a supportive son to his mother Emma was more important. Putting the needs of others ahead of his own was something that dad would continue to do, whether he was watching his son’s little league game from a secret spot because he knew seeing him would make me nervous, or his Sunday routine of providing security and operating the chair lift at AME Union. After he retired from his 30-year career with the Court of Common Pleas, he founded a nonprofit that my mother affectionately called the Arlene Family Taxi Service, spending more than 20 years of his retirement shepherding his kids, grandkids and great-grandkids to school, work, doctor appointments, and wherever else a ride was needed.

Pride can be a dangerous thing. Too much of the wrong kind of pride can leave someone thinking they are better than the person sitting next to them. That’s not that kind of pride my father exuded. He was proud of the people, places and experiences that made him. My old man was North Philly through and through, and he was always proud to say he was from the “heart of North Philadelphia.” He was so proud to wear the uniform of an American Soldier that he almost got into trouble when he moved from the line for blacks to the line for whites to buy his train ticket home from the segregated South. He was proud that my grandfather became the first Black State Senator in Pennsylvania. Even though he was born an Arline, he was proud to be Arlene. And he was so proud of his family. You couldn’t help be hear and feel how proud he was at every school award ceremony, graduation or football game. But there were also the times when he pulled you aside, looked at you and quietly said, “I’m proud of you.” And while the accomplishments of his family brought him joy, his pride was rooted most deeply in seeing his kids, grandkids and great-grandkids become people with good hearts and generous spirits.

My dad always talked about how blessed he was. In fact, the exact words we heard on more than one occasion were “you know, I’ve got a lot to be thankful for.” He had the type of family that may disagree every now and again, but that always pulls together when times get tough and who always let you know that you are loved. He had the type of friends who were loyal, who always had his back and he had theirs. He had his health, especially after surviving prostate cancer more than 20 years ago. Unfortunately, he never hit the Powerball or Mega Millions, but whenever he did hit a winning lottery number, he expressed his gratitude by sharing his winnings because when you get lucky, the people around you should be lucky too. Whenever I would say, “how you doing old man?”, he’d just say, “I woke up this morning, I’m ahead of the game.” As older millennial who has lost perspective from time to time as I focus on what I want for myself, I always come back to my father’s example of expressing gratitude for the things that are most important in this life.

The last week has been the most been the most bittersweet of my life. Experiencing his loss, I have felt a unique and profound pain I never knew existed. But I have also experienced a love I never knew before, a love born out of feeling the values that guided my father in a new way. I have felt immense joy not only in retelling old tales, but in seeing how much other people loved my father in their own way. I have experienced the village around our family put our needs ahead of their own, and I have watched my mother – Lois – lead with a quiet strength that I never saw before, as she has routinely put the wishes and memory of my father at the forefront as our family made arrangements. I have felt so proud to be a part of a family with so much love and compassion, who have moved through this period of heartache collaboratively and thoughtfully. And I have felt immense gratitude for the many kind expressions of love and support that our family has received from near and far.

My father brought immense joy to my heart and many others. My father reliably served his family and did whatever needed to be done. My father took great pride in what it means to be a member of the Arlene family. And he was grateful for a life that was well lived, where he shared love and reaped what he sowed.

Grateful. That is the word that I keep coming back to this week. For the reasons I’ve already mentioned and many more, I am grateful for Herb Arlene, Jr.

"It ain't nothing better than fallin' in love..."

After needing two full months between my first and second posts, my third post is coming in a full four months later. At my current rate, I’ll write my eight post sometime in 2021. Not exactly what I envisioned back in the spring when I thought about writing from time to time, but it’s an honest representation of the ebb and flow of life over the last few months.

Over the summer, I spent two weeks at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst during Annual Training with the 404th Civil Affairs Battalion (Airborne) in July, then traveled to Savannah, Nashville and the Dominican Republic in August for a relatively hectic mix of business and pleasure travel, and in September I started a new project with the National Association of Counties to help counties around the country to prepare for the 2020 Census (more to come on this).

The most important thing that’s happened in my life since the summer, however, was the decision my girlfriend – the wonderful Edisa Rodriguez – and I made over Labor Day weekend to adopt the new love of our lives, Chance The Rescue. Having never been the biggest fan of dogs for most of my 37 years, I went into the process of adopting a dog primarily with the goal of being a supportive partner. Edisa had long talked about wanting to adopt a dog and it was my job to embrace that decision. “Pick any dog you want, babe, and I will learn to love it,” I told her as we headed to the Saved Me Rescue Center. As we walked around the back to see which dogs we were interested in meeting, I noticed that one dog was sitting quietly and fearfully in his cage while the rest of the dogs were barking with nervous anxiety. We moved to the front room and the staff brought out a parade of dogs individually so we could meet them. They were all great in their own ways, but I didn’t feel strongly about any of them. If Edisa found a dog she really loved, that’s all that mattered.

And then they brought out the quiet dog. At the time his name was Luke. He was cautious, anxious and at eight to eleven months old, bigger than most of the younger puppies we met. He slowly made his way over to me, sat down directly in front of me and stared right into my eyes. Until this very moment, I can unequivocally say that I had never fallen in love at first sight in my entire life, but when I looked down at him and starting rubbing the back of his ears, it was a wrap. All of a sudden, I had to support Edisa’s process even though I was 100% sure that I’d found the dog for me and needed to convince Edisa that he should be the dog for us. After multiple trips to multiple Doggie Style Pets to see “Luke” again, as well as some other dogs, we decided to adopt him, scrambled to get approval from our landlord over a holiday weekend, and headed down to the South Street location to get our guy. When we arrived, he was out for a walk with another set of potential owners, but when they walked through the door, “Luke” saw us and walked right over. We chose him and he chose us.

 As cliché as it is to quote a famous poet that I’ve never actually read, this Anatole France quote rings true: until one has loved an animal a part of one’s soul remains unawakened. Over the last 10 weeks, Chance has provided newfound levels of joy, frustration and affection. He’s helping me learn how to express my emotions more openly, become less selfish as I learn to prioritize and integrate his needs into my daily life, and appreciate small moments of happiness without worrying about all of the outstanding items on my “to do” list. The day we brought him home, I had to carry him up the stairs because he was frightened after a harrowing two weeks of moving from Georgia to an adoption center in Philadelphia to our apartment. Edisa and I were totally overwhelmed in those first couple of days; he wasn’t house trained, he wasn’t used to city life and we were not prepared for this new creature who was not only dependent on us, but relentless in his desire to be with us. We’ve all come a long way since then. Chance is house trained, responds to commands and feels very much at home in our apartment. We’ve still got some things to work on – any suggestions on how to get him to stop nipping and barking at people he doesn’t know would be appreciated! – but nothing that we can’t handle.

We settled on the name Chance The Rescue pretty quickly. I am huge fan of Chance The Rapper and we’d been listening to his latest album while were going through the adoption process. We took a “chance” on him. He is a rescue adoptee. Dogs with multiple names are awesome. It felt right and I can’t imagine calling him anything else. And I can’t imagine feeling this way about any other dog. Like his namesake says, “it ain’t nothing better than fallin’ in love.”