Will budget crisis kill green?

What does the budget crisis mean for the Mayor's sustainability agenda? Does the future still have a future in Philadelphia?

The answer is: yes, and more than ever.

To recap: we started the fiscal year with a $119 million surplus. A dramatic decline in tax collections and the increase in pension costs resulting from poor investment performance mean that we are now facing a deficit of at least $108.1 million this fiscal year and over $1 billion for the life of the Five Year Plan.

Thus we have about six months left in this fiscal year  to squeeze savings out of the 43% of the General Fund budget over which we have discretion (about $1.7 billion, half of which--$850 million--is already spent for this fiscal year.)

Rather than simply make across-the-board cuts of almost 13 percent (as implied by the arithmetic of 108/850), we addressed the harder task of proposing a more strategic rebalancing.

While we are raising efficiencies (doing more with less) across the board, we are targeting our service reductions (doing less with less) in accordance with the principles of preserving core services, minimizing the impact on our most vulnerable populations, and being mindful of long-term implications.

(A complete presentation of our proposed savings and preserved services is available here.)

The administration undertook a full and comprehensive review of all departments and city operations. The result is an adjusted budget in which the burden of sacrifice is shared, including a delay in business and wage tax reductions until 2015; elimination of approximately 220 filled positions - 600 unfilled and 2,000 seasonal, part time and contractual positions; closing 11 libraries; and elimination of residential street cleaning, snow removal on smaller streets, and dedicated leaf, bulk and tire collections.

As the Mayor said in his budget address, "This process required that we make many tough choices, but I believe that the result is that we have maintained our smart investments."

The sustainability agenda is one of those maintained smart investments. There are current and future savings in the operating and capital budgets that derive from the work of the Mayor's Office of Sustainability (MOS). There are new sources of revenue that would not materialize without the work of MOS. And MOS's herculean commitment to producing a new Sustainability Framework by April will provide the crucial venue for aligning and prioritizing many city initiatives as we continue to search for efficiencies.

MOS has identified annual energy savings worth $3-5 million for the remainder of the Five Year Plan and is working with PECO and PA DEP to design and fund a variety of energy conservation measures for the government and our residents.

In addition, there are concurrent investments being made by MOS and our partner departments in areas such as: local food production and an improved regional food system; the improved delivery of basic systems repair and neighborhood preservation by taking a "whole house approach" in our housing programs; the greening of our schools and recreational facilities to reduce current costs and avoid future costs in both environmental and social terms; the improved delivery of workforce investment and economic development programs by leveraging the emerging green economy; and the public health and environmental benefits that accrue to building a new green infrastructure to manage storm water and sewage.

None of this would happen without a Mayor's Office of Sustainability to ensure new ideas don't fall through the cracks between traditional government priorities.

But all of these tangible savings and future aspirations for a better Philadelphia are threatened by the demagogic view that says closing a library is a consequence of having an Office of Sustainability. This is exactly the framing that some have used since the Mayor announced our budget rebalancing proposal last week.

This is a clear challenge to the Mayor's vision of a sustainable Philadelphia and a slap in the face of the diverse constituencies that helped shape the Mayor's sustainability agenda. Housing, food, jobs, and health are as central to that agenda as the energy savings that will help us rebalance our budget. Yet the attempt to mislead the very people with the greatest stake in that agenda---the young, the old, the most vulnerable to rising prices and vanishing jobs---is the cruelest kind of pandering.

We must not allow this old rhetoric to divide the natural alliances that exist among the green homes, green jobs, and green energy constituencies. Instead, let's use this opportunity to demonstrate to all Philadelphians the promise of lower energy bills, cleaner air, greener neighborhoods, and better paying jobs.

Together we can build partnerships outside of government and throughout the region that will rebrand Philadelphia as the greenest city and region in America and a competitive leader in the emerging economy.

Mark Alan Hughes is a Senior Adviser to Mayor Nutter and the City's first Director of Sustainability. Find his other green columns here.