Blackwell: Drop Charge For City Job Applications

City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell this morning introduced legislation that would roll back a $35 fee the city started charging in 2004 for filing out job applications for city jobs.  Blackwell said she did some research and found that more than 7,500 people applied in April for city laborer jobs, raking in more than $263,000 in application fees for the city. "If you hire 100 people, what about the others," Blackwell asked.

Then-Mayor Street introduced the fee in 2004 as a one part of a larger plan to erase a budget deficit.  Blackwell opposed it then and still does. "I don't think it's fair," she said. "It makes the citizens of this city feel like they're being unfairly picked on in this way."

Blackwell's legislation proposes a ballot question, which would ask voters if they want to prohibit the city's Civil Service Commission from imposing the fee.  Blackwell said she hasn't spoken with Mayor Nutter about supporting the legislation. The Law Department, she said, recommended that the legislation be drafted as a ballot question.