Almost three weeks ago, Mayor Nutter presented City Council with the data he collected from city departments on how 10, 20 or 30 percent cuts would affect their ability to provide services. Soon after, we received a hefty packet of the cut scenario data, which showed the crippling affect such cuts would have on police, fire or library services.
But we noticed that several departments were not included in the packet – among them commerce, human services and the managing director's office. According to the city, that information will be provided in a second volume of data.
Well, we still haven't seen that second volume. We asked for it about a week ago and then over the past several days we've been specifically requesting just the managing director's information. We want to see what would happen to signature programs like Philly Stat and 3-1-1 under cuts.
So far nothing. The press office told us today that the city wants to release all the remaining department data together and the department of human services information isn't ready.
We don't get it. The mayor has repeatedly talked about this being an open and transparent budget process. He has stressed that everything is on the table as he tries to cut $1 billion from the five-year-plan. And he has made clear that all departments had to prepare these cut scenarios. So why can't we see the managing director data?