Mayor Nutter will brief City Council tonight on department budget cut options. Nutter plans to provide council members with the scenarios created by department heads to show the impact of 10, 20 or 30 percent budget cuts -- and he says it won't be pretty.
"I think the main point is to share the information as we said we would. That's the purpose of tonight's meeting," Nutter said. He added that he wants council to understand the "very tough" options before the city.
After closing a $1 billion gap in the five year plan last November through service reductions, layoffs and delaying tax cuts, the city now faces another $1 billion shortfall over five years. Nutter is in the midst of a public budget process to get input from citizens on how the city should balance their books.
Nutter stressed that he is early in the process and no decisions have been made. On the information that will be provided to council tonight, he said: "these are scenarios, they're options, they are ideas."