As City Council returns, school funding debate looms

PHILADELPHIA This summer, Mayor Nutter and City Council President Darrell L. Clarke championed separate plans to find the $50 million needed to keep Philadelphia's deficit-ridden public schools from delaying the start of the academic year.

Though the funds were promised and the schools opened on schedule, the battle of wills isn't over. With Nutter and Clarke still differing sharply about how to rescue the schools, that fracas is set to resume Thursday when Council returns from its summer recess.

"Thank God we opened our public school system on time," Council Majority Leader Curtis Jones Jr. said Wednesday. "The question becomes, 'How do we make it until June?' "

The school funding debate should dominate an already meaty slate of fall meetings, which usually pale in comparison to spring sessions, when Council grapples with the budget and tax policy.

On Wednesday, Clarke and a handful of colleagues promoted their preferred plan of giving the School District $50 million in exchange for a portfolio of shuttered school buildings.

Clarke said a bill would be introduced Thursday to transfer the $50 million to buy the buildings, which he thinks can be sold to pay back the city treasury.

He called the proposal "a no-brainer that solves several problems," including the blight of empty buildings and the cost of maintaining them.

"This is real money, a real opportunity, and we need to make a real decision," Jones said.

Even if Council passes the bill to transfer the funds and buy the buildings by a veto-proof margin, the mayor is not required to spend the money.

The Nutter administration and the School District recently announced their own plan to sell vacant buildings, and the district has included $28 million from those expected sales in its five-year budget.

Nutter would prefer to follow the outlines of a state package to bail out the schools, which Clarke has termed a "bad deal." That plan calls for the city to borrow the $50 million against future collections of the extra 1 percent sales tax that the city imposes on top of the state sales tax.

The mayor sent legislation to Council this summer that would extend the 1 percent sales tax, which is due to expire in 2014, but it's not clear that he has an ally willing to introduce the bill Thursday.

At a news conference Wednesday to announce a fund-raising campaign to buy school supplies, Nutter said he did not want to speculate on whether the bill would have a Council sponsor.

"I'm not going to make any predictions about what may or may not happen. . . . Why don't we just wait until we get there?" he asked. "The members are elected independently. They have to make these kinds of decisions for themselves, but hopefully the decision-making will be done in the context of what's best for schoolchildren."

Nutter also would have to get Council's permission to borrow the $50 million. He said he was not sending a bill to Council to seek that approval Thursday, but "you shouldn't read anything into that."

School Superintendent William R. Hite Jr., who opened schools Monday on the promise of the $50 million from the city, said Wednesday that he was not worried because Nutter and Clarke "both have made assurances" that the money would arrive.

"By January, February, that's a time frame we'd like to have those moneys in hand, because we've started spending those moneys," Hite said.

Other major issues expected to dominate the Council's fall agenda include:

A report scheduled for release next week based on hearings held this summer on the fatal building collapse at 22d and Market Streets. Council members who sat on a special panel have been meeting in recent days with the administration to discuss recommendations and legislation that could arise from the report.

Legislation, more than eight years in the making, to create a central land bank for the city's vast stock of vacant and abandoned properties. After receiving state approval last year, the Nutter administration has been moving to set up a land bank within the confines of the Philadelphia Housing Development Corp. The bill, sponsored and championed by Maria Quiñones Sánchez, would spell out the land bank's goals, priorities and governance.

A bill W. Wilson Goode Jr. plans to introduce Thursday to end the 10-year property-tax abatement for new housing construction on the schools' portion of those taxes. Property taxes are split between the city government and schools. Goode also is likely to call for a vote on a separate bill to cap the abatement at $500,000 of a property's value. If approved, the bill then would go to Nutter to sign or veto. The abatement, credited with sparking a building boom a decade ago, has become more controversial in light of the school funding crisis and a recent overhaul of the property tax system that drastically altered some homeowners' tax bills.

A bill that Councilman James F. Kenney plans to introduce Thursday to force mayors to seek Council permission before challenging an arbitration award. Nutter last week gave up a challenge to an arbitration awarded to the city's firefighters, who had been without a new contract since 2009.

Mayor Nutter would:

Borrow $50 million against future collections of the city's extra 1 percent sales tax, which is set to expire in 2014.

Extend the 1 percent sales tax.

City Council President Darrell L. Clarke would:

Have the city pay the School District $50 million for shuttered buildings that could be sold to make the money back.

Extend the extra sales tax, with revenues split between schools and the city's underfunded pension plan. — Troy Graham