Council likely to give preliminary approval to parts of the budget plan
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Council likely to give preliminary approval to parts of the budget plan
Catherine Lucey and Jan Ransom
8:45 - Ok, Council gave preliminary approval to the mayor's proposed property tax overhaul, as well as a hike in a business tax. But these votes are not final and there still could be a lot of twists and turns before this budget gets done.
7:30 p.m. - After looking ready to vote, things have slowed down in Council and key players have again disappeared behind closed doors. We're hearing a variety of budget bills remain on the the table. So stay tuned.
7 p.m. City Council is poised to give preliminary approval to a budget bill that would provide some funding to the school district, but legislators do not appear to have reached consensus on Mayor Nutter’s property tax proposal.
Council President Darrell Clarke just told reporters that Council will give preliminary approval tonight to a bill that would raise $45 million for schools through a business tax called the use and occupancy tax.
Members have been meeting behind closed doors all days, trying to reach agreement on the budget.
Mayor Nutter has proposed shifting the city to a property tax system that relies on market values. Nutter also wants to raise an additional $94 million for the cash-strapped schools with the transition to AVI, saying he was attempting to capture the rise in property values in the city. Critics called that move a back-door tax hike.
Council has been discussing raising between $85 million and $94 million through a smaller property tax reveneue increase and an increase in the use and occupancy tax. But the deal does not appear to have nine votes yet.
Increasing the use & occupancy tax will just make it more expensive for all of us who buy things in Philadelphia. Just fix the property tax system and stop making everything else worse.— stevestevestevesteve- If there's one thing this mayor loves, it's tax increases. What a fraud.— Noonan
Comment removed.- Comment removed.
- Quick to approve additional tax revenue collection, but slow on retrieving unpaid millions in unpaid tax revenue!!! Shouldn't the latter trump the other in raising revenue!!! What Bozo is driving this bus, no wonder the City is financially underwater???— Dadair1
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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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