What about those ballot questions?

PHILLY VOTERS heading to the polls Tuesday will face four ballot questions dealing with city budgeting, police hiring practices and oversight of water rates.

These questions can look confusing if you're seeing them for the first time. So here's what you need to know:

* Question 1: Asks if the city should amend the home-rule charter to create a body to set water and sewer rates.

This is the most controversial question. Council President Darrell Clarke wants to set up an independent body on the grounds that the current process - the water commissioner proposes rate hikes and then after public hearings approves them - is too insular.

The Nutter administration opposes the change, arguing that the new board could be subject to undue political influence and could disrupt the agency's borrowing powers.

* Question 2: Asks if the charter should be amended to require the administration to provide more information with the budget proposal.

The Committee of Seventy supports the change, saying it will increase transparency. But the Nutter administration says that it is working to provide that information already.

* Question 3: Asks if the charter should be changed to give hiring preference to grandchildren of cops and firefighters killed in the line duty. Such preference is already given to their children.

* Question 4: Asks if the city should be allowed to borrow $123 million for capital expenses like streets and rec centers. These kinds of borrowing transactions are how the city pays to invest in public property.