Lessons learned from budgets past
Adminsitration officials admitted today that last year's failed effort to raise additional dollars for schools under AVI was a bad idea.
Lessons learned from budgets past
Jan Ransom
Last year Mayor Nutter wanted to raise $94 million for schools under the Actual Value Initiative, a new property-tax system based on market values. Critics dubbed the proposal a backdoor tax hike.
Ultimately, because assessments were not complete Council opted to delay AVI for a year and raised only $40 million for schools.
Today, though Nutter will propose a budget that under AVI will collect the same amount of revenue in 2014 as in 2013. He also will not ask for additional money for the financially troubled school district.
Adminsitration officials admitted today that last year's failed effort to raise additional dollars for schools under AVI was a bad idea.
"The pledge that the Mayor made is that through AVI we would collect the same amount in 2014 as we collected in 2013," said Rob Dubow, the city's finance director. "I think one of the lessons from last year was trying to do something else really muddied it. AVI should be about getting assessments right, not raising new revenue."
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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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