Heard in the Hall

More Council members turn down raises

Philadelphia City Hall and political coverage from the Philadelphia Inquirer City Hall bureau.

8 comments

More Council members turn down raises

POSTED: Thursday, June 30, 2011, 5:40 PM

Troy Graham

The final tally on which Council members are going to accept the 1.9 percent cost-of-living raise they are entitled to collect starting July 1 is now available.

We wrote in today's print story, found here, that 10 of the 17 members are returning the raise to the city's general fund or donating the money (about $2,300 for most members) to charity. (Ignore the slight math error early in the story that suggests there are 18 Council members. If Heard in the Hall was good at math, we wouldn't be journalists.)

As of Wednesday, four Council members were taking the raise - Blondell Reynolds Brown, Maria Quinones Sanchez, Frank Rizzo and Frank DiCicco - and three members hadn't yet informed the Council President's office of what they wanted to do with the money.

As of today, all three late respondents have been accounted for: Jack Kelly is keeping the raise; Curtis Jones Jr. is returning the money to the general fund; and Joan Krajewski is donating the money to Special People in the Northeast, which serves people with disabilities.

And, today, Brown announced that she's had a change of heart. She is now going to donate her raise to four groups - Women's Way, City Year, Senior's Law Center and the Urban League of Philadelphia.

"After careful review and re-assessment at the close of this all consuming budget cycle, I had to hit the pause button and figure out what my priorities are," Brown said in a statement. "Economic hardships have resulted in several bruising budget cycles for some of our most valuable non profit organizations - particularly those that serve our most vulnerable populations. I have determined that the best use of my Cost of Living Adjustment is to help ease their pain."

So, the tally now stands at 13 Council members returning their raises or donating the money to charity, and four keeping the money.

Click here for Philly.com's politics page.

8 comments

Previous Story: Chat at 11 a.m. Thursday: Miriam Hill on whether young families can trust the city's schools

Next Story: Nutter to relaunch PhillyStat

Comments (8)

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:40 PM, 06/30/2011

I once thought that we needed more women as elected officials to provide ethical leadership. But if we review the various divas in Philadephia who are in positions of power you'll find out that they are just as arrogant, greedy and entitled as the men.

Think about those who abused and perverted the DROP program. Who were the two original DROP Queens? The answer is Joan Krajewski and Marge Tartaglione. They both retireed for a day and came right back to work. Then you have the current DROP Queen in Marian Tasco. Collecting a huge DROP bonus, a $120,000+ Council salary and annual pension is not enough for Tasco. She wants to make $150,000+ as Council President. Then you have Blondell Reynolds Brown and Marie Quinones Sanchez arrogantly accepting a COLA raise while the unemployment rate is well over 10% in the country and city employees have gone 4 years without raises. Then you have Cathy Scott and Rita Urwitz who are the President and Vice President of District Council 47. Both Grandma Scott and Urwitz went through DROP and came back to the SAME jobs. They collected big DROP bonuses, receive annual pensions that are more than the average salary of the workers they represent, and make six-figures with their Union jobs. This at time when members of DC 47 have gone without raises for 4 years, are paying a lot more towards their health care and have frozen seniority steps. The time has come for all these greedy shrews to go home and be replaced by people with integrity and an ethical core. Add Aretha Ackerman to this list. Enough said.

— Serpico

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 9:10 PM, 06/30/2011

Serpico, i thought i was the only one who noticed the DROP QUEEN TASCO the leader of the city wing with her sidekick BLONDUMB BROWN and CHAQUITA SANCHEZ who have learned their greedy ways from god awful tartaglione and krajewski can u imagine running into those 2 in an alley. as for grandma scott what more can be said other than please get rid of the red dye and finally queen aretha ackerman and her co-horts over at the bottomless PIT known as the school district

— the commodore

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 11:07 PM, 06/30/2011

So bottom line- Blondell had a change of heart and is now donating the money. Big of her. That leaves our little crook and reformer ??? - Maria Sanchez who is GREEDILY keeping the raise that she absolutely does not deserve. There is no question that Sanchez is a self-serving individual. I guess she must need the money after paying off Carlos Matos and the Tartagliones for "their hand" in helping her this past election.

— ih8liars

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 12:30 AM, 07/01/2011

Of course they'll take the raise as they all know if they are not retiring they will be re-elected in November. "Mayor Bloomberg, City Council Speaker Quinn and the City Council today announced an agreement for an on-time, balanced City budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2012, which begins on July 1st. The plan balances the budget with no tax increases and avoids more severe budget cuts - despite an record reduction of the amount of tax dollars the State returns to the City - through the use of more than $4 billion of prudently saved prior year resources, billions in agency savings actions, an increase in revenues and concessions from the United Federation of Teachers." Too bad Philly doesn't have elected officials that know how anything about financial management!

— Moving On

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 9:45 AM, 07/01/2011

Yeah the gread got to them but there still is time to unseat them in november they will not be looking for write in's to run.

— matthews

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:08 AM, 07/01/2011

Serpico, I agree with your principal there, and the information you're putting forth about the leaders of the city employee unions concerns me, but your post is so sexist and full of inaccuracies that I can't take it seriously. You wrote that Blondell Reynolds Brown "arrogantly accepted" a COLA increase, but if you read the actual article you're commenting on, you'd have seen that Blondell Reynolds Brown donated her raise to charity. Also, you write that "the unemployment rate is well over 10% in the country" and it's actually 9.1%.

It's also strange that you would choose this article as your opportunity to rant against women with power, since it's clear that 3 of the people ("arrogantly") keeping their pay raises are men -- Rizzo, Dicicco and Kelly -- and only one is female. You can criticize City Council members without calling them divas and shrews.

— phillyvoter11

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 11:58 AM, 07/01/2011

Phillyvoter11 - obviously you missed the fact that Blondell REynolds Brown had originally accepted the raise to keep for herself. She had a change of heart after media and constituent pressure. Secondly, while I don't always agree with Serpico, he stated why he was giving his slant on females. He stated that he "once believed we needed more women as elected officials to provide more ethical leadership".

— postal10

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 2:43 PM, 07/01/2011

phillyvoter11: I have consistently taken both male and female members to task on City Council and Union officials who signed up for DROP and made an irrevocable commitment to retire and then didn't. As Postal10 said, Blondell Reynolds Brown gave the raise back because she was pressured and it looks bad to take it. Rizzo, DiCicco, and Kelly are wrong for taking it but they are retiring. The unemployment rate is over 10%. The government does not count those who are unemployed and have stopped looking for jobs. There is nothing sexist or inaccurate about my post.

— Serpico