About 24 hours have passed since the massivee snow storm. 72 hours until the next one begins. I am not sure if I am surprised, or what, but in my neighborhood Philadelphia, and Philadelphia government did its just really, really well.

• On Friday, everyone parked, and stayed off the streets on Saturday.
• On Saturday, most people shoveled their sidewalks, and did so pretty quickly. And the plows were going pretty quickly. I walked to Center City on Saturday afternoon, and just about every sidewalk was clear, and every major street was plowed.
• Then, at some point yesterday, even the sidestreets (except for the very small ones) saw plows rolling down, too.

When I was a kid, and we got out thirty inches of snow, the city shut down for a week. Now? Take away the snow banks, and you would never know what happened. We are in a period of recession-driven, shrinking revenues. Paying the millions it took to clean up so thoroughly like this is not simply a mandatory response, because at times in the past, we have been told that a through clean up costs too much money. Instead, it was a conscious decision made by the Mayor, which will have ramifications on the bottom line of our budget.

But, this kind of thing is worth it for two reasons. First, on a very basic level, a week of snow-misery sucks, and, it is nice to not to have to deal with it. And second, and most important, it is good for people to see city government functioning, and functioning well.

There are going to be a lot of pitched battles over the next year- from the budget to union contracts- and it will force the city into another year of our municipal budgeting nightmare- seemingly without the inclusiveness that we saw the last time. As we think about cutting services, or better targeting some taxes (like the BRT change proposed by Stan, and studied by Councilwoman Quinones Sanchez and Green), or whatever else we consider, it is heartening to head into the process with a clear demonstration that in one of its most basic functions, the city’s government can perform really, really well.

The Coalition to Save the Libraries cover up InPDUM's banner

Thanks for raising the issue of the state budget, Dan. To most Philadelphians Harrisburg can seem pretty remote, but we ignore what's going on right now at our peril. The General Assembly is currently considering two budget bills that will have serious negative consequences for our city.

One, already passed by the Republican-dominated Senate, cuts $2 billion in services (mostly education, public welfare and community economic development) all to avoid a modest, three-year tax increase. (For more on cuts and the impact of the proposed increase go to www.pccychildwatch.blogspot.com.) It's called SB 850.

The other, proposed by House Democrats, would restore many (but not all) of those cuts by removing higher education from the general fund, and funding it some other (as yet undetermined)way. Oh, and did I say it would also reduce basic education funding by $118 million and Pre-K by $15 million? That' HB 1416.

A round-up of things in my neck o’ the woods:

1. Foxwoods fiasco remains stalled: The bizarre Foxwoods fiasco remains stalled out, but that didn’t stop the casino from filing for a license extension last week. The petition reads like one long plaintive whine on why their gamble on a downtown casino hasn’t hit the jackpot yet. It also demonstrates how effective Councilman Frank "My Fighting Days are Over" DiCicco and Mayor "No Barriers to Casinos" Nutter were in stalling the project and potentially getting concessions from the casinos – something both have refused to do now that the project is off the waterfront.
2. Petition to stop predatory gambling practices: Meanwhile, the No Casino in the Heart of Our City Coalition is pushing a petition for City Council which targets predatory gambling practices (sign here). The "No Blank Check For Casinos" Campaign argues that Council has a moral and civic duty to enact basic protections when a slots house is placed next to neighborhoods and homes – things like: making sure casinos close between 2-8 a.m.; prohibiting free unlimited alcohold service, and prohibiting ATM machines and lending on the casino floors. So far DiCicco has argued that such protections are outside his control.

   Ironically, in 2007, DiCicco made sure the City amended its otherwise strict limitations on payday lending to exempt casinos. Seems like it’s not impossible after all for Council to consider citizens’ needs as well as casino needs.

3. Another out of touch Inky editorial: Over the weekend, the Inquirer published yet another awful editorial on the Philadelphia public schools. It was based on the annual report written by the District’s one-note Safe Schools Advocate, whose apparent sole contribution is an annual doomsday report on school violence. In its editorial "Rotten Apples," the Inquirer stated it’s time to "get rid of persistent troublemakers." Unfortunately, its tough on kids approach offered few options, and the Safe Schools Advocate, as expected, simply pounded on his one issue – noting the fact that schools don’t expel enough kids. That got me thinking about a recent Baltimore Sun story about Baltimore’s "go nuclear" approach: permanent expulsions under zero tolerance. With zero tolerance, there’s hardly any need for due process (parents have 10 days to appeal in writing) and the rotten apples are prohibited from attending any public, charter or disciplinary school, thereby placing the entire burden on the parents to either home-school or pay for private school.

(Note: This blog entry was updated to separate the District's operating budget from its capital budget, which is $2B or so dollars over five years)

It's kind of hard to imagine that if someone handed you a thank you card for your $810 million gift of city cash, there wouldn't be a significant amount of public scrutiny over where it's going. But it appears that's what may happen to the School District's FY2010 budget.

The 330-plus page operating budget was just put online last week. The capital budget hasn't even been released for distribution. Then last week City Council announced that it has canceled today's day-long accountability hearing for the School District and will instead condense it into a one-day session tomorrow which includes public testimony. All of which means that this budget - $3.2 billion operating - is not only the largest in recent memory. It could also be the least scrutinized.

I, like many, am encouraged that there are many capable people over at the District. I'm glad that the District isn't engaged in scandals that earned it the kind of headlines it did in 2006 and 2007. I actually even think the District has put out more information about its budget than it has in the past. But having smart people who haven't embarrassed themselves in the paper recently doesn't mean a budget of this size gets a free pass.

Michael Nutter had it right when he was a candidate. He not only actively supported keeping casinos out of neighborhoods he rightly stated that casinos are bad economic development and that he would not use their revenue for government services, no matter how worthy these services are. As a candidate and in his first year as Mayor, Nutter was poised to become a champion, to stand up to the predatory gambling trade and the corrupt governor, Senator, legislature and Supreme Court that has been pushing for years to make Philadelphia the largest US city to host casinos.

HERE'S the TOP 5 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD GO TO THE SITE www.nopropertytaxhike.com

1. Higher property taxes means our slow housing market will get even slower.
2. The city's property taxes are levied based on "WHO YOU KNOW". Just ask Senator Vincent Fumo.
3. Philadelphians carry one of the HIGHEST TAX BURDENs IN THE COUNTRY
with property taxes at their current rates .
4. Hundreds of millions of dollars of non-taxed real estate sits on the shelf at City Hall --- and they won't sell it to developers who will develop the land and put it in the hands of those who will pay property taxes.
5. For many people near retirement age who have seen their 401k funds dwindle, higher property taxes damage their only retirement asset.

When every other major city in America is cutting bloated public employee rolls, Philadelphia decides to place most of the burden on balancing the budget on homeowners and this is wrong.

LOG ON, SIGN THE PETITION AND PASS IT ON

Hanging out near the Coral Street Arts House tonight? join the NKCDC on a discussion of taxes, budgets and economic sanity...

Thanks to Hannah for already linking to this New York Times article, but this really is worth a more in-depth look:

PHILADELPHIA — Mayor Michael A. Nutter said Tuesday that Philadelphia would have to raise taxes or fees to close its budget deficit.

"We can’t just cut our way out of this situation," Mr. Nutter said in an interview with WHYY radio. "We will have to consider very seriously some form of revenue enhancement."

This new rhetoric from the Mayor comes following the publication of PennPraxis’ report on the recent citywide budget hearings. The summary of the talks is incredibly encouraging of the sensibility and humanity of a majority of Philadelphians – and not surprising for those of us on YPP who commissioned a poll months back that yielded similar conclusions. The difference is of course that this report hit the national news as a city that is demanding other options.

The report says that the majority of people:

• don't want services cut

• will pay more in taxes if they have to

• want to ease the tax burden on low-income people

• and would consider alternative correction opportunities for non-violent offenders if it could mean closing a city jail.

"Given a chance to confront the tough tradeoffs, most citizens opted to tax themselves — while struggling to give a tax break to those less fortunate," said a report by the Project for Civic Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania, which organized the meetings.

Working groups concluded that residents would be prepared — though reluctant — to pay higher taxes on sales, wages, real estate transfers, businesses and parking, said the report, published late Monday.

That's pretty amazing.

What’s most encouraging though is that in times of crisis, people want to know that government is there to take care of core and essential services that benefit and protect not only the majority of its residents but especially the most vulnerable.

It's great to be a part of this city.

Chris Satullo has written up a summary of the budget workshops, after compiling some of the data. His conclusions, which are a little more comprehensive than the ones I compiled, are still basically the same. And frankly, many of them make me feel very good about my neighbors.

* Citizens tended to oppose strongly anything they perceived would harm those services likely to be needed by the people who are must vulnerable in these perilous economic times. For example, human services, public health and housing services got tabbed as a No Way, No How item even more often than did Police or the Free Library.

* After taking cuts to things such as shelter beds and health centers off the table early, many groups decided later in the evening, however grudgingly, that they had to support significant tax hikes to demonstrate how serious they really were about protecting these services to the vulnerable.

* Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Everett Gillison told me he was impressed by how many groups showed interest in the idea of closing a city prison. Many citizens rallied to the notion that enough nonviolent offenders could be released (or alternatively sentenced in the first place) to free up space to bring back all the prisoners now housed, expensively, at suburban jails – or even to close one prison. Citizens uniformly did not want re-entry or job training services cut; they wanted fewer nonviolent offenders in jail. This idea was also considered strongly by a number of groups that ended up not voting for it.

* Support for wage tax increases was strikingly strong. Most of it came near the end of the evening, when people realized they had taken more points off the board than they had put up. This is when, for many citizens, the difficulty of the task of actually having to balance a budget in the real world really hit home.

* Sales tax increases also got a fair amount of the same kind of last-minute support. Hikes in parking and amusement taxes tended to be earlier slam dunks.

* Meanwhile, raising business taxes generated surprisingly (at least to me) little enthusiasm. These taxes were discussed only in a slim minority of groups. The notion that the gross receipts portion of the business privilege tax is unfair and unwieldy seems to have trickled down to the grass roots. A fair amount of grousing could be heard about suburban companies and banks in general not paying their proper share of the BPT.

In effect, the conclusion that most people come to is that rather than savaging our city or harming the most vulnerable, we should roll back wage tax cuts, something we have mentioned here. Doing so may involve a certification of some sort from PICA and from Rob Dubow, but given the 'unprecedented crisis,' it shouldn't be that hard to get.

On the prison issue, I too was surprised just how widespread the support is for reforming our justice system despite the fear and terror of crime in our city. In my group, I made my own impassioned plea, but was shot down because the option also implied that re-entry services would be cut or that prisoners would be even more over-crowded. In other words, it was that they didn't think we were being compassionate enough... The appetite for change there is real, and over the next month or so we are going to keep harping on it. A lot. It is commpassionate, smart, and now, completely neccesary.

Rather than a simple taxes v. services, Philadelphians had to make specific choices. And city services, compassion and pitching in won out. Chris has put up the data set here, and the Mayor will be responding on Radio Times next Tuesday. It should be quite interesting.

I would like to extend a big welcome to the defenders of government spending, the PA House and Senate GOP. After deriding Ed Rendell for not cutting enough from his budget, the Reps and Senators are shocked and outraged that he is cutting the services that they want:

In the House, Rep. Gordon Denlinger, whose Lancaster County constituents farm some of the most productive cropland in the nation, said he was concerned that the state's largest industry was being unfairly targeted.

"Ultimately, we need a more balanced approach," said Denlinger, who sits on the Appropriations Committee. "Year-after-year cuts indicate a lack of support by this administration."

Uh huh.

"I don't know how I can vote for the budget unless there's a restoration of these budget lines," said Sen. Michael W. Brubaker (R., Lancaster). "I am outraged and embarrassed that the commonwealth is not serving the needs of the state's number-one industry."

Riiiiight.

And Rep. Richard R. Stevenson (R., Monroe) decried annual cuts in the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources' budget that have left Moraine State Park in his district with less staff.

Mmm.

At least someone calls it like it is:

Rep. Dan Frankel (D., Allegheny County) said the Republicans' sentiment reflected "reality meeting ideology."

We should make them do budget workshops.

So, I combed through the budget data from the first three budget workshops. There are some deeper issues about how these things operate, which I would like to explore soon, but even taking all the caveats, I wanted to look through the numbers, and see how many 'points' people came up with, and whether they were willing to pay for services.

I compiled the data from Its Our City (South Philly, Northeast, and Germantown). What I did is in a spreadsheet here. Please feel free to error check my data if interested, because I did it quickly, and may have screwed something up.

A few things I found:

Last night, I sat in on Mayor Nutter’s most recent “kitchen table” talk with Philadelphians about the budget. (It was more of a living room talk, but I digress.) The first of these talks happened in Juniata a couple of weeks ago. The scene was pretty interesting, and took place in the home of some community leaders in East Oak Lane. The basic set up was about 15 people and the Mayor talking about the budget, and what people wanted out of services, if they were willing to have service cuts, if they were willing to raise taxes, etc. I guess I was ‘press,’ but, I was still sitting in someone’s living room, and so, I won’t directly quote anyone or anything like that.

This is my quick recap, as best I can remember it all. I am going to the budget thing tonight in Germantown, and, I have some more to say about the trash collection idea and this whole process, but I will save it all for later.

Preconceptions

I know that in the Penn Praxis budget sessions, there are some complaints that the “fix is in-” specifically, that people are being asked to simply choose which services they want to cut, rather than thinking about enlarging the pie. I don’t think that was really the case yesterday. I have no idea how the Mayor’s staff will actually incorporate the responses here into the actual decision making process, but yes, the Mayor asked openly about both about services and taxes.

There was one preconception, however, that he does carry with him that I wonder about. Specifically, he implied that this is a structural, long-term problem. There was no sense that although this was a very deep and broad crisis, it was still something that would have an end point. We do have obvious structural issues in our budget, which we all know about. But, those are the same problems that candidate Nutter faced, too. We also have some temporary ones, for which I think we should consider temporary solutions.

The Meeting

The Mayor asked a bunch of different times if there were services that people were willing to do without. Frankly, not very many people were able to elucidate any, other than fat or waste. The Mayor asked a bunch of times, and there weren't a whole lot of answers.

What was clear was that, in that room at least, people don’t want any cuts that would mean less police on the streets or slowed fire response times. But again, there simply weren’t a ton of services that were obviously ‘cuttable,’ period. (And, there were some jokes about the libraries and the Mayor not wanting to go through that again.)

As you would expect, people didn’t jump up and ask for their taxes to be raised either. The trash collection fee came up, and while there was some resistance, there was what I would call grudging acceptance amongst people, especially if there were a means test of some kind. The refrain that came up a few times was “If I have to pay five dollars a week to have my trash collected so that a cop doesn’t get laid off, OK.” (I worry about the trash fee, but I will save that for another day.)

Other random stuff

It seemed apparent to me from his talk, as well as from the general consensus in the room, that the unions will be asked to pay towards their healthcare costs in upcoming negotiations. That will obviously be a huge sticking point in negotiations, but, considering what private employers do, and if this room was an example, it will present union leaders with a serious public relations problem.

That said, in a couple of different ways, the Mayor explicitly stood up for City workers. For example, in response to a question about waste, he basically said, for example, 1)being a sanitation worker is hard, and 2)most of them work pretty hard.

I had to run home to anxiously await the potential to be drug tested (long story), so I didn't stick around to ask the Mayor questions.

I am heading to the budget thing in Germantown tonight. It should be interesting.

Another Philadelphia police officer has been gunned down in the line of duty, this time in an apparent shoot-out last night in front of the Olney Transportation Center.

Officer John Pawlowski, 25, whose wife, Kim, is expecting their first child, was killed after he and his partner responded to a report of a "fight on the highway" on Broad Street near Olney Avenue.

Police said the gunman approached the cabbie and demanded money about 8 p.m. The cabbie warned he would call police and the man responded: "If you call the cops, I'm shooting you and the cops. The cabbie went ahead and called police, and pointed out the gunman to Pawlowski and his partner after they arrived, police said. As the officers approached the gunman, he lifted a .357 Magnum handgun, firing through his clothing, and striking the officer in the chest.

Because when basic economic theory or public support or Congress or the tanking casino industry itself turn against you, we can always rely on the politics of fear to try and force things to happen:

Rendell said sentiment across the state could really turn against Philadelphia if its two approved slot parlors are not open by the time Pittsburgh's casino is finished, which is expected late this summer.

"There will be a bill that will whip through the Legislature taking gambling proceeds away from Philadelphia," Rendell said during an annual question-and-answer with the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce.

Meanwhile let's not forget that casino revenue hasn't stopped the state from plugging a $5.6 billion hole (Correction: $2.3 billion) or losing jobs or making us a national example of pork spending. But at a time when AC is going belly up, casinos are facing bankruptcy, and regular folks are struggling to hold onto every dollar they can, we can rely on our Governor to employ the politics of fear to force a bankrupt idea on his own city.