Philadelphia ballot questions include new panel to set water, sewer rates

Philadelphia voters on Tuesday will decide four ballot questions, including one asking whether to authorize the creation of an independent body to set water and sewer rates.

The water proposal, championed by City Council President Darrell L. Clarke, came after the Water Department in February proposed a 28.5 percent rate hike spread across three years.

Rate increases now go through a public-hearing process, with Clarke, Mayor Nutter, and City Controller Alan Butkovitz appointing the hearing officer and a public advocate. The final decision, however, rests solely with the water commissioner, Howard Neukrug.

"The water commissioner is a fine and honorable person, but he should not be able to request an increase and also approve an increase," Clarke said.

The Nutter administration opposes the ballot measure, fearing a new level of political control over rates could affect the Water Department's bond rating.

The timing would be especially bad, considering the department is eyeing billions in infrastructure improvement in coming years, said Mark McDonald, Nutter's spokesman.

McDonald also noted that the ballot question, which would result in a change to the City Charter if approved, does not spell out how the independent board would be selected or operate.

"The system that we have, frankly, works pretty well," McDonald said. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Although Council would have to hash out the details later, Clarke pledged the body would consist of industry experts and Council would have no hand in setting rates.

"I know about as much about water as most citizens. You turn on the tap, it comes out, and you drink it," Clarke said. "I think that people who are professionals should be engaged in that process, independent of the Water Department."

If the ballot proposal passes, the change would not affect the current rate increase. After hearings over the summer, the hearing officer recommended a settlement for a smaller hike - 17.4 percent over 21/2 years.

The settlement awaits approval from Neukrug and likely would go into effect in January.

A second ballot question, which also proposes a change to the City Charter, asks whether additional information should have to be submitted with the mayor's annual budgets.

The measure is an attempt to move the city toward a more modern "program-based" budgeting system, which includes a more detailed cost-benefit analysis of how money is spent.

Councilman Bill Green has pushed, in a series of bills, to update the city's accounting procedures. Nutter also has supported program-based budgeting.

The administration, however, has been concerned that the city doesn't have the technology to make the change.

"We're headed there as a matter of policy," McDonald said. "We don't need to change a fundamental document of the city to get there."

Green said that the change needed to be codified in the charter and that he had agreed to work with the administration on an acceptable time frame.

"Unless there is a sort of end game, it won't get done," he said. "But I'm not unreasonable or unrealistic about what it will take to get there."

The third ballot measure - also proposing a change to the City Charter - asks whether the grandchildren of police and firefighters who died in the line of duty should be given preference on civil service entrance exams.

Voters approved a charter change in 2006 giving that preference to the children of police and firefighters lost in the line of duty.

Councilman Brian O'Neill, who was lead sponsor on the current measure, said he was inspired by Fire Lt. Robert Neary, who died in April at 59 at a blaze in a vacant Kensington warehouse.

The final ballot question asks voters whether to allow the city to borrow $123 million for capital improvements - the type of city bond question often on ballots.

The money raised would be devoted to transit, streets and sanitation, municipal buildings, parks and recreation, museums, and economic and community development, according to the question.

The nonpartisan political watchdog group Committee of Seventy did not take a position on any of the ballot questions except for the program-based budgeting proposal, which it supported.

Question 1

Shall the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter be amended to allow for the establishment of an independent rate-making body for fixing and regulating water and sewer rates and charges and to prescribe open and transparent processes and procedures for fixing and regulating said rates and charges?

Question 2

Shall the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter be amended to authorize the creation by ordinance of requirements for additional information to be submitted with the annual operating budget, annual capital budget, and capital program, including, but not limited to, information about the cost of performing specific functions, the effectiveness of such functions, and the costs versus benefits of proposed expenditures, and to require the finance director to provide such information?

Question 3

Shall the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter, which allows for a preference in the civil service regulations for the children of Philadelphia firefighters or police officers who were killed or who died in the line of duty, be amended to further allow for a preference for the grandchildren of such firefighters or police officers?

Question 4

Should the City of Philadelphia borrow $123,670,000 to be spent for and toward capital purposes as follows: transit; streets and sanitation; municipal buildings; parks, recreation and museums; and economic and community development?

EndText