Shouldn't budget cuts start with the prison perks (Cable TV) instead of our children and our safety OR I wonder how much is spent in court fighting gun laws. Go ahead Mayor Nutter spend away to make guns illegal. Only problem is that making anything illegal in this city guarunteees it will be avaialble for purchase on almost any street corner. Last but not least what about the legislative aides being paid 85-90K a year, are they really needed ?

Do ANY of the City Council Reps need a "legislative aide"? No... that and the fact that maybe City Council ITSELF isn't needed...well, at least a few members. Maybe City Council should be trimmed (permanently) from the current size of what 16? I think, down to say maybe 12 or 10. Knowing that this new size should encompass BOTH parties please, don't need any of this one party rule B.S. Also, cut their pay. 10%-20% whatever; cut it. Same for the Mayor's salary (I know he cut it 10% but I am referring to a more fixed number and permament). Also...start going to the unions now and get them to start paying into their healthcare ad retirement benefits like everyone else does who has a job in and around this city. If they say no...fire all of them, effective immediately. Trust me, you will be more than able to find replacements but the idea is simple...these new employees pay part of their healthcare and retirement benefits, the city can no longer support them.

Do ANY of the City Council Reps need a "legislative aide"? No... that and the fact that maybe City Council ITSELF isn't needed...well, at least a few members. Maybe City Council should be trimmed (permanently) from the current size of what 16? I think, down to say maybe 12 or 10. Knowing that this new size should encompass BOTH parties please, don't need any of this one party rule B.S. Also, cut their pay. 10%-20% whatever; cut it. Same for the Mayor's salary (I know he cut it 10% but I am referring to a more fixed number and permament). Also...start going to the unions now and get them to start paying into their healthcare ad retirement benefits like everyone else does who has a job in and around this city. If they say no...fire all of them, effective immediately. Trust me, you will be more than able to find replacements but the idea is simple...these new employees pay part of their healthcare and retirement benefits, the city can no longer support them.

Unfortunately, most of what needs to be done (collecting back property taxes, cutting corporate tax breaks, promised payments/ grants from the PPA that never materialize, and a host of others) will never happen because of the pressure put on the city and council by those who have the money to begin with. It's disgusting that we're trying to find ways to keep from cutting services and closing libraries when the simplest answer to our fiscal problems is really just to stop giving the biggest perks to those who need it the least and just "play fair".

DiCicco's ideas - on phillyclout.com - are good ones - street furniture could bring in millions a year - and naming rights could work too - check them out

That's why kids is committing so many crime, because the city keep taking away every programs that helps them to stay out of trouble. Idle time is the devil workshop. If the kids have no recreation, it gives them no other alternative than to hang on the corner with other kids getting into mischief. Nutter is only concerned with investing in prisons why not prevention that way the criminal becomes a taxpayer instead of an inmate.

We have to collect the $568 million in overdue property taxes. We have to grow a property tax base by taking non-property tax paying properties and putting them en masse back into the tax revenue producing stream. There are 150,000 properties that owe the city back taxes, most can afford to pay up, and are just waiting for the city to get serious about foreclosure to pay. Here's the city's own numbers: http://www.hallwatch.org/proptax/about/redelinq/stats/summary

WE have to make property tax and business tax foreclosure on assets by the city an airtight process. That means we have to have campaign finance reform in the city that is better than the state of PA, and on par at least with the federal government. That way, any journalist can see who give money to the party in power, and who gets special lax treatment on foreclosure and nonpayment. Pay to not play is real. This is a big issue for Nutter, he's a good government guy. He'll pass it. But the press must get out in front, in concert with the local Common Causes and good government groups, who have to hammer city council, and just be willing to go smash mouth.

The city has 150,000 properties that owe the city real dollars now, but the city only forecloses on 150 properties exactly, a month, like there is some official, but secret limit. That's 1800 properties a year. How long will it take to catch up at that rate? 83.3 years folks. That's unsustainable by anyone's measure. But the foreclosure process from Dept. of Revenue that recommends properties for foreclosure, to the City Law Dept. Real Estate Tax Unit, which processes them, to the Sheriff, which schedules them for sale, and sells them, is broken. It's permeable to political manipulation at each step of the process. My block captain brags that she can "stop a sheriff sale" by calling her cousin who works in the Sheriff's office. It appears to be true. Making it impossible to stop sheriff sales by not allowing this, making it frankly illegal, punishable by felony time, this is part of going after all municipal corruption.

There has to be a legal limit on the percent of property tax delinquents any one zip code can carry, or automatic triggering of foreclosure results with no ability to stop on a property that is vacant or empty. Look at the zip codes that have carried 40-50% of all property owners NOT paying property taxes on the schools and services they use in abundance: http://www.hallwatch.org/proptax/about/redelinq/stats/delinqbyzip/index_html?skey=pcent&rkey=pcent

The RDA is the top property tax delinquent in the city. The reason why they are so far behind on getting these properties back into the property tax paying sector is because they are allowed to redo or rewrite the redevelopment agreements that politically connected pet redevelopers fall behind on. This has to be made frankly illegal. If the developer falls behind on these very liberal agreements, the RDA should be forced to sell the property at auction. Open, competitive auction to the highest bidder. This is how the city will not have itself and the RDA as top property tax delinquents and will grow a base that will build equity that the BRT can reassess and gain revenue on in the near future. http://www.hallwatch.org/proptax/about/redelinq/stats/topdelinquents/mailingaddress

I agree with the posters that it is tragic, tragic, and monstrously unfair to children, that this money is right here, sitting like an uncashed paycheck yet we are shutting libraries and pools. Why not just buy each of them a little handgun, and turn them loose? Plus, the paper is finding readers to be a precious commodity, and anything that slows their genesis is going to mean real losses of readership in the near future. The paper has to fight, really fight, for anything reading-related, including, asking the hard questions -- why is the city so far behind in foreclosing on this property tax debt, why is the BRT not implementing full market value, why is Council not crafting revenue neutral legislation to complement it, why are so many local contributors also tax deadbeats?

I remember my childhood library has a shine to it in my memory like a church. You take this away, you kill their spirits. Angels seemed to dwell there.

If the city just sold all the vacant property it holds and does nothing with for years, and forced the failed HOPE funded developments that are still just vacant lots to be sold, the thousands of properties that would get old debt paid would fund libraries this year, and the future real time property taxes would get paid every year by new owners to fund libraries in perpetuity. If the papers are not willing to go after these sacred cows, that they love to write annual puff pieces on, the Universal Companies and Kenny Gambles and wannabes, Odundes, insert your local failed CDC here that is close buds with your City Council rep and Chaka Fattah, then libraries are going to close. They are not going to give you a press release on how far behind they are in developing this stuff that is in property tax arrears. They are not going to tell you that they are terrible managers. You're going to have to have the stones to admit it in print.

Director of Sustainability? Nutter step up and get rid of all the bloat(and friends) you added soon as you walked in the door. Allyson Schwartz's son still on the payroll for some obscure PR job? What happened to New Day, New Way. Get rid of the useless Mural Arts Program, Cons to Work and all the other programs that pander to lowlifes and keep intact the programs and services for the people that actually pay for them.