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Monday, January 12, 2009

Philly Clout: Worse budget numbers coming

Nutter: More bad news coming
Link: Nutter Says Budget Update Coming Soon [PhillyClout]

"It could be in the course of this week," Nutter said of the announcement. "Don't have the final, final numbers yet and that's what we would use to make our projections for the rest of FY09 and the five year plan. I can tell you, unfortunately, things have continued to deteriorate and it is of great concern."

Back in November, Nutter put the deficit at $1 billion over five years -- prompting the city to announce a cost-cutting plan that included laying off city workers, closing libraries and pools and delaying tax cuts. Due to a further decline in tax receipts, Nutter has said the budget gap has grown, but has not yet released an exact figure.
Posted by Ben Waxman @ 4:17 PM  Permalink | 5 comments
Comments   
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 2:50 PM, 01/13/2009
    What about the $522 million owed the city in unpaid property taxes on 130,000 properties that could go to sheriff sale? [http://www.hallwatch.org/proptax/about/redelinq/stats/summary] What about FMV, announced as imminent by the BRT about 5 years ago? Cutting the edges of the budget in areas that are not the obvious fatty redundancies like fire and libraries is a puzzle. There are more than half a dozen city agencies with the word "housing" or "development" in them, and what are they doing but duplicating what they each offer, holding property out of the property tax paying base? Cut the overlapping offices first. Libraries, fire, trash and snow removal are expected services of local government, not tertiary "housing" and "development." The private market works in Philly. We don't need the city to be a giant real estate holding company that doesn't pay property taxes. In too many of these "corporate" tax delinquents, the city has a hand in the funding and failure of these projects that are sitting fallow like failed states. They have to be foreclosed and put back in the property tax paying base: http://www.hallwatch.org/proptax/about/redelinq/stats/topdelinquents/corporations
    — CleanupPhilly
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 2:52 PM, 01/13/2009
    Who own the 300 properties that share the same contact address that owe the city $1 million? #11 on the list of Top 100 Corporate Property Tax Delinquents, this would appear to be the city itself, but the city doesn't seem to want people to know that, so it removed the name of the owner from the record that is released to Hallwatch. Isn't that rather curious? http://www.hallwatch.org/proptax/about/redelinq/stats/topdelinquents/corporations
    — CleanupPhilly
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 2:55 PM, 01/13/2009
    Some single entity owes the city $1 million in overdue property taxes on 300 properties, but someone on the inside violated the law to remove the name of the owner of these properties before this info was released to Ed Goppelt as part of the FOIA answer ordered by the courts. Isn't that odd, given that the city needs that money pretty badly? If that's a clerical error, than a clerk made that mistake doing the data entry 300 times on each different address. http://www.hallwatch.org/proptax/about/redelinq/stats/topdelinquents/corporations
    — CleanupPhilly
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 3:02 PM, 01/13/2009
    This would appear to be record tampering to disguise who or what owes big property taxes on 300 properties. If this is our money, then what the eff? Why are property tax receipts projected to decrease when it is entirely in the power of the city to go after that money and collect it? Why can't or won't the mayor step up property tax collections? What is he waiting for? I'm dying to know, and I'm dying for the press to cover those questions.
    — CleanupPhilly
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 3:40 PM, 01/13/2009
    Does the city really need to hold and own so much property? The potential for abuse and corruption is too great. The city is listed at #3 as a top property tax delinquent, because obviously it doesn't pay itself property taxes, although it should to create momentum to sell these properties. There are any number of agencies set up to dispose of these properties, so why haven't they if we need this money? $7 million in back taxes would be collected when they sold this stuff, plus the sale price would go to the city, and probably twice that every year in new property tax revenue would start coming in. What is Nutter even talking about with libraries, when there is all this property he is in control of that could be sold -- could it be that maybe he needs to act on this? What is he waiting for, still even more bad news? Do we have to sue him to get him to do the job? http://www.hallwatch.org/proptax/about/redelinq/stats/topdelinquents/corporations
    — CleanupPhilly


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Every year, city government spends slightly more than $4 billion. Where does all that money come from? More importantly, where does it go? Are we getting the most bang for our tax buck? “It's Our Money” is a joint project between Philadelphia Daily News and WHYY, funded by the William Penn Foundation, designed to answer these questions.




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