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Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Next stop on the budget train: Harrisburg
Mayor Nutter needs budget help from Gov. Rendell

The budget deal struck by Mayor Nutter and City Council spares residents from temporarily paying extra property taxes.

But if Harrisburg lawmakers don't approve several key proposals in the plan, the city could be forced to make devastating cuts beyond those already threatened in the backup "Plan B."

"Obviously it would be pretty dire," said Finance Director Rob Dubow. "Plan B is beyond anything we want to do - a Plan C would be worse."

The compromise budget extends a proposed temporary 1-cent sales-tax increase from three to five years. That tax is now 7 cents on the dollar, with 6 cents going to the state and one to the city.

And to ease immediate financial pressures, officials plan to defer some payments into the city pension fund for two years and pay back the fund later.

Those two moves require state approval, as does a third money-saving measure - stretching out payments into the city pension fund over 30 years instead of 20.

"The real issue now is that they don't control any of this," said Uri Monson, executive director of the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, which oversees the city budget.

The city budget is supposed to be approved by the end of May, but the state's budget deadline is the end of June and negotiations often drag into July. So city officials will likely pass their budget without knowing if they will get approval for plans they need to close a $1.4 billion five-year hole.
Posted by Ben Waxman @ 10:30 AM  Permalink | 5 comments
Comments   
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 11:05 AM, 05/13/2009
    I wonder: has he city has picked up the phone and called each legislator in Pennsylvania and asked them how they will vote on the increased sale tax?
    — Joshua911
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:07 PM, 05/13/2009
    I appreciate that the author wrote, and the writer above ended with, the point that the city is putting something they refer to as a budget, which it most certainly is not, into the hands of a process that will drag late into the summer. That's completely irresponsible on two huge levels. It bases numbers on revenue that does not exist, revenue that requires a tax hike that the legislature already stated that it opposes, and that heads of the party refer to as "uphill" or unlikely. Could the newspaper do that? Could you management call their numbers a budget if it is something that relies on newspaper or advertising sales that don't exist and go to the bank with that? No. No bank will lend on revenue that never existed and may not ever exist. The revenue projections have to be revenue. You can slyly suggest that that is what the paper did when it borrowed what it did under Tierney, but the banks didn't lend on your revenue, they lent on the value of your assets. One of those assets is your big building on Broad St. They cashed you out based on a fire sale. I disagree with that kind of financing because I disagree with the concept of junking a business instead of making a go, then crying how bad the climate is for [insert junked business here].
    — CleanupPhilly
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 1:09 PM, 05/13/2009
    We're in Plan C now. We can't cut police, fire, prisons, and courts because of growing demand on services. But we will have to cut the nonessentials not related to public safety directly, and not just cut by 30%. Whole programs will have to be cut and consolidated, and unused or underused assets sold. Concessions, cuts, and collection will have to proceed full force on the overdue property taxes, forfeit bail, and union pay and contributions. It will be the end of the patronage quid pro quo party boat. I won't be sad to watch the boat sink.
    — CleanupPhilly
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 6:49 PM, 05/13/2009
    Too late, 8mil cut to the Fire Department in addition to the cuts already made. Total of 180 jobs jost in the fire department.
    — jn3
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 10:13 AM, 05/14/2009
    Governor Rendell has turned Philadelphia into Killadelphia...the Largest Open Air Prison in America and now, the First in the Nation in "COP KILLINGS". For years Rendell has been betraying sacred public trust by releasing thousands of stone thugs to save Million$ in State Budget Funds for his "No Bid" contracts, etc. Remember Cain? Giddings? Burgess? Shaw? Wilson? and most recently, the 4 out of the 5 Murderers currently on trial for gunning down "Piggy", the mother of 4 children? All are State Parolees. Look at it...State Parolees are responsible for our Murder and Crime Rates. Rendell has been repeatedly helped/allowed to do this by Mayor Nutter, The City Council, State Legislature, and Tom Corbett (Attorney General who's running for Governor and too busy to worry about innocent lives, duty, etc.). They've all been told, in writting, with evidence for well over a year now. Murder victim after murder victim...destroyed family after destroyed family. State Parole Agent caseloads are unmanageable by design. Where are all our "Award Winning" Investigative Reporters? Probably on leashes and muzzeled, cause their bosses want a bailout ($$$) from Rendell! Everybody knows what's going on...that we've been unjustly and routinely paying hundreds of Millions and Bleeding to death for the previledge...that another "Newsworthy Parolee Murder Victim" is very certain and VERY SOON, but nobody wants to say who's responsible for "The Rendell Murders". We need to sue the State to get our money back...encourage all the victims to sue the State... call the FBI and DOJ and demand that they investigate Rendell, Parole Board Chairman McVey (Who's been refusing to send Parole Violators back to prison for over 4 years now) for Corruption and Civil Rights Violations! Where are the FEDs when we need'em? Let's all stop reading and start calling the FEDs! Big Brother Where Are You?!
    — John Law


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