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Monday, November 9, 2009
Paying top dollar, but why?
Along with launching a 311 call center, seen here, Mayor Nutter needs to modernize City Hall by eliminating wasteful, elected row office jobs.

Why should taxpayers in Philadelphia pay top dollar to carry out routine government functions like running sheriff's sales, conducting elections and filing deeds and other court papers?

The price tags for these functions are inflated, in part, because they're handled by four independent row offices headed by six elected officials.

So these row offices - Sheriff, City Commissioners, Clerk of Quarter Sessions and Register of Wills - are a vestige of City Hall days gone-by that Philadelphia can afford no longer.

That's the compelling conclusion of a report from the city's fiscal oversight agency. The study by the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority (PICA) bolsters the case for getting rid of the offices - a move that could save taxpayers wasted millions now spent propping up political and patronage fiefdoms.

In March, the government watchdog group, Committee of Seventy, issued its own call for eliminating the six elected posts and consolidating the functions under the city's mayor.

Mayor Nutter also is considering the move as part of what he has pledged will be "a complete restructuring and reform" of municipal operations - all the more urgent now, given the latest budget woes.

While each of the row offices has come under attack in recent years for various shortcomings, the PICA study for the first time quantifies the potential savings from scrapping what Seventy calls "six obscure and patronage-laden . . . elected positions."

PICA found that the spending by the four offices was above the median cost for the 14 other most populous Pennsylvania counties.

City taxpayers pay a premium that runs 20 percent higher for the Sheriff John D. Green's office, more than 50 percent higher for Clerk of Quarter Sessions Vivian T. Miller's office, and nearly double at the three-member elections agency under its chair, City Commissioner Margaret Tartaglione, and double for Register of Wills Ronald R. Donatucci's office.

By eliminated the elected posts and moving their functions to city agencies or the courts, PICA says the city could save up to $15 million a year if costs were brought in line with the median spending.

In addition to citing the costs, PICA officials note that due to their independent status the row offices currently operate largely under the radar with too little accountability.

Even as Seventy credits Donatucci with a customer-friendly approach - and the elections board made the trouble-free conversion to new voting machines - as a group, the row offices often come under fire.

Sheriff Green's tongue-in-cheek motto - fake it 'til you make it - has seemed an all-too-realistic description of his stewardship when audits rapped his internal controls on handling money. Ditto for Miller in the clerk's office.

For their part, the city commissioners recently have been faulted for overpaying election workers and personnel policies. And the Register of Wills' all-patronage operation "reinforces the stereotype of patronage and corruption," according to PICA.

What PICA recommends hardly qualifies as a radical reform, since Allegheny County voters made the move four years ago. The state's second-largest county saves about $1.2 million a year after eliminating several offices.

In Philadelphia, the only plausible explanation for retaining these row offices would be that city leaders want to remain stuck in the past - and they're happy to stick taxpayers with the bill.

Posted by Inquirer Editorial Board @ 2:50 AM  Permalink | 1 comment
Comments   
Posted 10:26 AM, 11/10/2009
thinkaboutit3
It's amazing that the "entitled" government employees that are presently sitting in jail are "ALL" civil servant employees NOT patronage employees.
1 comments
About The Inquirer Editorial Board
Harold Jackson, a winner of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing, grew up in Birmingham, Ala., during the civil rights movement. He graduated from Baker University in Baldwin, Kan., in 1975, with a degree in journalism/political science. He has also worked at the Birmingham Post-Herald, United Press International, the Birmingham News, and the Baltimore Sun. He was at The Inquirer in the mid-1980s, returned in 1999, and became editorial page editor in 2007.

Paul Davies is the deputy editor of the Editorial Page. His newspaper career has spanned more than 20 years and includes stints at The Wall Street Journal and the Philadelphia Daily News. He graduated from the University of Delaware and received a masters in journalism from Columbia University, where he was also a Knight-Bagehot Fellow. He was born in Philadelphia and still lives in the city.

Tony Auth began drawing while bedridden for a year and a half at the age of five. He graduated from UCLA in 1965 and worked for six years as a medical illustrator while doing three cartoons a week for various college newspapers. Tony has been happily ensconced as The Inquirer’s editorial cartoonist since 1971. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976, and has won numerous other awards, including five Overseas Press Club Awards, the Sigma Delta Chi award for distinguished service in Journalism, and the Herblock and Thomas Nast Prizes. Tony is married to Eliza Drake Auth, a painter of realistic landscapes and portraits.

Trudy Rubin is the foreign affairs columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and a member of The Inquirer’s editorial board. Her column appears twice weekly in The Inquirer and runs regularly in many other newspapers around the United States. She is the author of Willful Blindness: The Bush Administration and Iraq.

Kevin Ferris is an assistant editor on the Editorial Board who oversees the Sunday Currents section and writes a weekly column on a wide range of issues. In his 15 years on the board, he’s handled letters to the editor and the Community Voices pages and has been Commentary Page editor. He started with The Inquirer in 1986, and his assignments have ranged from the copy and news desks to the Chester County bureau and the national/foreign desk.

As an editorial writer for The Inquirer for the past two decades, Russell Cooke has written on a wide range of topics covering government, legal, civic and social issues. Before joining the Editorial Board, he was a reporter in the Inquirer’s City Hall bureau.

Editorial writer Dave Boyer joined The Inquirer in 2002. He writes about politics, government, the economy, sports and many other subjects, but draws the line at writing about "Jon & Kate Plus Eight." He has won journalism awards and insists bribery was not involved. A native of Allentown, Boyer graduated from Penn State. He and his wife reside in Center City, where they enjoy strolling and paying the wage tax.

Melanie Burney joined the editorial board in January 2008 after covering education at the Inquirer for eight years. She previously worked at the Associated Press in Philadelphia and southern New Jersey. She is a graduate of Glassboro State College, now Rowan University, and a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Josh Gohlke has been The Inquirer’s op-ed editor since last year, editing the daily commentary page and writing occasional editorials. He came to the Inquirer after eight years at The Record of Bergen County, N.J., first as a reporter covering local and state politics and government and ultimately as the deputy editorial page editor. He also worked as a reporter for several smaller papers in New Jersey and California. Josh was born and raised in Los Angeles and graduated from Stanford University. He lives in Philadelphia.

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