City dishes out $1 million for Occupy Philly
City Budget Director Rebecca Rynhart announced that the city dished out a little more than $1 million for the protest, mostly in police overtime.
City dishes out $1 million for Occupy Philly
Jan Ransom
Updated: To include additional information
The costs are in and Occupy Philly left behind a hefty tab for the city to pick-up.
City Budget Director Rebecca Rynhart announced today that through Wednesday the city dished out a little more than $1 million, mostly in police overtime for the movement against corporate greed which began on Oct. 6.
That number is far lower than the city’s projected $2.5 million they had anticipated spending in police overtime if protesters stuck around on Dilworth Plaza until the end of the fiscal year, which ends June 30, according to the quarterly city manager's report released Nov. 15.
Rynhart said $930,000 was spent in police overtime and the remainder of costs includes clean-up.
“A big portion of [the costs] was in the last week with all of the activity that was taking place,” Rynhart said. “The cost in the last week were over $400,000 alone.”
Protesters were evicted early Thursday morning and 52 protesters were arrested during a showdown with police. Shortly, after the eviction, clean-up began on the Westside of City Hall –the area is now fenced-off.
But that doesn’t mean the Occupy movement is over and City Finance Director Rob Dubow said costs could increase depending on Occupy’s next move.
“We don’t know what could happen in the rest of the year but we could wind up spending more than we have spent so far,” Dubow said.
These costs come at a time when more budget cuts are on the horizon, due to weak tax revenues in the first few months of the fiscal year. City department heads were asked, in September to prepare plans for 2 percent budget cuts. Dubow said departments are still going through the cut process. Police, prisons and fire departments are exempt.
Meanwhile, the city says Occupy Philly owes it money for electricity they used, but mayoral spokesman Mark McDonald said that total is not yet clear.
This is what the Occupiers' view of democracy looks like - takers take, and the makers pay for it. Mooching scumbags looking for a handout. Congrats, Philly taxpayers. You deserve it. Honk if you support being robbed by slackers.— DC- And Ramsey's salary costs us $1 million every two years, plus his huge retention bonus. Just dock half his pay for the next four years and we're even. I'm sure he can manage with only $250,000 a year, especially since most of his cops do with about 14% of that.— jerkoftheworld
- I love it how the picture shows protesters attempting to incite the police. Yet had they received the beat down they should have gotten there would have been an uproar. Dirty, filthy, losers of society.— ant8817
- If only Philly.com had paid this much attention to the trillion dollars we've spent on wars overseas and the 700 billion we gave to the banks maybe the city wouldn't have had to spend a pittance to put police at a place where it wasn't needed.— mattSR
- Boo Hoo the cops ruined my protest! If you want to protest, please learn how, now go away!— Street Sense13
...and the trade off is no money for a Mummers parade. Where is the accountability of our public servants?- Look at those punks throwing the finger at the cops. Cops look pretty claim to me, they should be teaching those "PEERS" a lesson that their parents obviously didn't!— sarah89
- The city should be allowed to charge Occupy rent and related charges.— zippy1346
- Non violent protest? Only one reported rape in the tents....so much for safety. Report ALL the facts not just the convenient ones.
- Sounds like denying people their first amendment rights is not cheap.— Mr. Baseball
Comment removed.- The amount of money the city chose to hand out to police was just that, a choice. There was no need for that money to be spent. Protests are not criminal and require no more police intervention than any other peaceful gathering. Just poor planning by unprepared, corporate-serving, nervous politicians. Another vivid example of why this system is failing.— justguessing
- Comment removed.
- Less actually.— podunko
- Comment removed.
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David Gambacorta spent a small eternity writing about cops, drug dealers and serial killers. Now he’s writing about power and politics – which sometimes reminds him of the old crime beat. He joined the Daily News in 2005. And yes, he knows you’re not quite sure how to pronounce his last name. E-mail tips to gambacd@phillynews.com
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Jan Ransom, a native New Yorker, joined the Daily News in 2010 after graduating from Howard University. She has since written about the difficulty of filing police complaints, tax deadbeats and life after violent home invasions. She joined the Daily News City Hall Bureau in 2011 and has plunged headfirst into reporting on administration budget battles and City Council shenanigans. E-mail tips to ransomj@phillynews.com
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Sean Collins Walsh is from Bucks County and went to Northwestern University. He joined the Daily News copy desk in 2012 and now covers the Nutter administration. Before that, he interned at papers including The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News and The Seattle Times. E-mail tips to walshSE@phillynews.com
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