Budget Address Set; Could Be Raucous Affair
Philadelphia City Hall and political coverage from the Philadelphia Inquirer City Hall bureau.
Budget Address Set; Could Be Raucous Affair
Mayor Nutter plans to give his budget address on March 14.
With the recent unveiling of the numbers from a citywide reassessment and with unresolved labor contracts for three of the four major municipal unions, the speech could be the most interesting and raucous in years.
Last year, city workers packed the upper galleries in Council chambers, repeatedly shouting, heckling and interrupting the mayor during his address.
Nutter’s relationship with the unions hasn’t gotten much better since – the mayor recently moved to impose contract terms on the city’s blue collar union, AFSCME District Council 33, and he is fighting an arbitration award to the firefighters. Contract negotiations with the white collar union, District Council 47, remain unresolved as well.
As for Nutter’s property tax reform effort, the Actual Value Initiative (AVI), the mayor plans to release a budget that shows some level of tax relief and a possible tax rate, Finance Director Rob Dubow said today.
On Friday, the city began mailing out the results of a citywide reassessment to owners of the city’s 579,000 parcels. Council will set the tax rate that would apply for next year’s tax bills during the coming budget season.
That rate depends on what kinds of tax relief are provided to homeowners. With no tax breaks, the administration has said the rate would have to be 1.25 percent, or $1,250 per $100,000 of value.
During a committee hearing today, Council President Darrell L. Clarke criticized the airing of that 1.25 rate since any tax relief measures would raise the rate. If Council then gives homeowners a $30,000 homestead exemption, for example, “it will appear that Council is increasing the rate,” Clarke said.
“All of a sudden, Council’s the bad guy,” he said. “I got a problem with that.”
But Dubow assured Clarke that the mayor’s budget would have tax relief and the resulting higher tax rate included. He did not elaborate.
Giving homeowners tax relief means the rate must raise to collect the same amount of money, meaning owners of other types of property would have to pay more. Homestead and other forms of relief also are unlikely to benefit owners of the city’s most expensive homes.
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Fire Fighters Local 22 will be out in force.— Dupes1- It only means a higher rate for homeowners if Council doesn't find other sources of tax revenue that hits others who don't now pay their fair share like the big so-called non-profits, Penn, Drexel and Temple, and the huge commercial property owners. There are also ways to bring in more revenue from the Gross Receipts Tax that would provide relief to small businesses while primarily impacting out of City businesses. Hopefully Council will look at all these approaches, not to mention the early retirement of the outlandish abatements that benefits almost everyone except regular people.— Stan Shapiro
- thanks for my $1000 increase in property taxes, I was already paying over $4000.— uandwhosearmy
- Gotta love it, the unions who vote straight D election after election are upset. Not that a good majority of Republicans are the anwser but will they ever get it? Local 22 deserves it's due and raise(s), as far as the rest of them, who gives a rats arse.
— TomM - Demo only know how to spend spend and spend some more.— DEBBY1958
- If our Republican Mayor gets to say one word, that will be too many
— jn3 - This is the most disastrous thing any mayor has ever done sine Goode burned down a city block. Mayor Nutter is an arrogant and uncreative "Republican." His claim to be a progressive and forward thinking mayor is laughable. He has allowed the Chamber of Commerce, Brett Mandel,the business community, Paul Levy and the council people whose areas will see very very miniscule relief to push through a very bad idea. Sure the old method of assessment was not much better but it was this way because of rampant cronyism and old school politics. The old system rarely was responsible for blatantly horrific increases of 100%=200%. I would say this will kill the housing renaissance in this city. Thanks to the arrogant Michael Nutter I would have to add the accusation of racist as well to this description. Just look at the map of the BRT's hardest hot areas and draw your own conclusions.— letfreedomring
- 1) This is not even close to as disastrous as anything Goode did. 2) You saying Nutter went through all this so he could reward a handful of his select friends? Makes no sense. 3) If a property was last reassessed in the 80's for, let's say, $10,000, and the AVI figure came in at $50,000 -- a 500% increase. The market value of the home today is between $40-60k. Does this constitute a "blatantly horrific increase" or is it a matter of equalizing property values due to the dormancy and corruption that plagued the BRT for 30 years?
The reason why Philadelphia is a second class city is because of people like you: you want to preserve what you have at all costs, continue to take advantage of the positive changes this city has experienced since the 80's/90's & not pay your fair share. Once the city rids itself of people who are as closed minded as you, we will begin to become a DYNAMIC city, where continued growth and improvement matter most.
Do us all a favor and move to Camden...— mmcf1414 - It will be funny to watch a crowd of entitlement minded loonies yelling at an entitlement minded loonie mayor. Free, free, free...everything is free!!! They should just bill this event as "entitlement-palooza!". Funny.— kelprod2-freemarket
- It is in the nature of governments to grow, largely in their own interests, and it requires constant vigilance, a vigilance that many preoccupied with work and other issues cannot afford to spend time on. The three major groups intent on picking the public's pocket are the long-time career politicians, never shy about feathering their nests, the bureaucrats, and the public unions using politics rather than economics to demand not only a fair wage but whatever they can negotiate for their support. I understand that NJ is pretty bad in that respect. An interesting point is that the only states that are in financial trouble are those with public employee unions. At some point, that may never come, governments are going to have to decide what are essential government services and provide only those. The gimmes that pols come up with for their constituencies are going to have to go.— K&A347
- I am appalled at the mayor's assessments. Look in the Parc and Barclays buildings on Rittenhouse. Look at the condos bought for millions of dollars assessed for about a 1/3.— jonline
- How can you raise the proposed rate from 1.25 to 1.34 or 1.4 % if theres a homestead and still provide homestead relief????? It does not provide any benefit to homes that have jumped drastically but not "rich peoples homes".
Example 300,000 @ 1.25%= $3750, 300,000 @ 1.4% (homestead rate no exemption)=$4200) 300,000- 30,000 exemption= 270,000 @ 1.4%= $3780
So you rate with a homestead exemption and the higher rate goes up $30.
WHAT RELIEF ?
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