School district asks Council for $, assures accountability
The School District is currently asking City Council for more cash to help deal with a $218 million shortfall for the next fiscal year.
School district asks Council for $, assures accountability
Jan Ransom
The School District is currently asking City Council for more cash to help deal with a $218 million shortfall for the next fiscal year.
Mayor Nutter has proposed moving to a new property-tax system, known as the Actual Value Initiative, which would make permanent two tax hikes that were deemed temporary and collect an extra $94 million along the way for the school district.
Critics call it a tax hike, but Nutter has said the city is simply capturing the increase in property values. Some Council members argue that providing extra funding for the schools should be debated separately from AVI.
“We have a school district that is all but broken,” City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, said at the start of Tuesday’s budget hearing. “We have been misled for years regarding the true state of school district woes.”
“There has not been the level of accountability Council has the right to expect,” Blackwell added. “We have had five hearings or briefings and a nine hour hearing and we’ve come to this conclusion we need change.”
School Reform Commission Chairman Pedro Ramos assured Council that the School district will be accountable and transparent while stressing the need for extra revenue, adding that “without those funds our gap next year would grow to over $300 million.”
School District: "We need more money."
Council: "No."
Ah, we can dream, right?— citylumberjack
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- http://webgui.phila.k12.pa.us/uploads/j0/jm/j0jmdxDGXHtWODppPf9D5w/FY2012-13-Proposed-Budget-Detail.pdf ... (page 14)
In 2010-11, the School District recorded $336.4 million in billed receivables. Of this amount, $80 million was written off; another $92.4 million was estimated uncollectible; and $163.9 million was estimated to be collectible...— emoney - Comment removed.
- ...interesting that the $94 million requested resembles the $92.4 million estamated as uncollectible revenue....so basically all things being equal, there is no real need to raise taxes if an effort was made to actually collect revenue due to the City.— emoney
- The city has greatly improved compliance so going forward, the uncollected total should start to shrink. You can't just wave a wand and collect $400M in delinquent taxes. Even if we could get everyone who can pay to pay, and get lineed properties to sheriff sale, much of it is simply uncollectable and many of the properties aren't worth anything.— BarryG
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- The District’s represented employees do not contribute to the cost of their medical benefits. Effective February 1, 2012, all of the District’s non-represented employees began to pay for 5% of their monthly medical insurance premiums....number of full-time equivalents (FTEs)is 19,907 (p.22)...Total District-wide spending on medical benefits in FY2012-13 is projected to be $231 million, of which
78% is in the operating budget...The District’s represented employees do not contribute to the cost of their medical benefits. Effective February 1, 2012, all of the District’s non-represented employees began to pay for 5% of their monthly medical insurance premiums. (p.25)— emoney - correction to above post......number of full-time equivalents (FTEs)is 19,907 (p.22)...Total District-wide spending on medical benefits in FY2012-13 is projected to be $231 million, of which
78% is in the operating budget (p.25)...The District’s represented employees do not contribute to the cost of their medical benefits. Effective February 1, 2012, all of the District’s non-represented employees began to pay for 5% of their monthly medical insurance premiums. (p.25)— emoney - 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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