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Letters: Nutter contends he's cut size of city government

Several opinion pieces may lead readers to believe the city has relied only on revenue measures to solve the multibillion-dollar deficits it has faced since the world economic collapse. That is false. Excluding pensions and debt service, the city's costs

Several opinion pieces may lead readers to believe the city has relied only on revenue measures to solve the multibillion-dollar deficits it has faced since the world economic collapse. That is false. Excluding pensions and debt service, the city's costs this year will be about $160 million lower than in fiscal 2008. A big part of that reduction has been in personnel costs. Since December 2008, the city's general-fund workforce has shrunk by about 800, and when part-time and temporary positions are added, there are 1,250 fewer employees now than at the end of 2008. And for the first half of this fiscal year, overtime was down by a third from where it was last year.

It's important to look at how cuts from the adopted fiscal 2009 budget to the proposed fiscal 2011 budget have impacted particular departments. The Free Library is down 18 percent; Parks and Recreation, 11 percent; Sanitation, 14 percent; Public Health, 7 percent. Police overtime was down 33 percent in the first half of this year from where it was last year. Fire overtime was down 27 percent in the same period. Even departments with lower profiles have been cut dramatically since fiscal 2009. City Planning's budget is down 23 percent; the Finance Department budget, when adjusted for its transfer out of the Office of Economic Opportunity, is down 38 percent; Managing Director's Office, down 18 percent; Procurement Department, 19 percent; Records Department, almost 5 percent. While those cuts have been substantial, services have either remained stable or improved.

Yet another argument is that while the city's population has contracted, the size of its workforce has not. This is not true. Since peaking at 29,956 in 1965, the number of city employees has declined by more than 25 percent. Last year's collective bargaining agreements began to address health-benefits costs by reducing the city's payments for uniformed employees, and the city's move to self-insurance for non-union employees, combined with the police union award's move to self-insurance, continued that trend. It is clear that my administration has been aggressively cutting costs, and that those cuts have hit both key service departments and other departments hard. If The Inquirer thinks more should be done, it should say where those cuts should be.

Mayor Michael Nutter

Philadelphia