Heard in the Hall

No offense, but if reading the city website to find that they posted this announcement a few days early poses as "intrepid" journalism, then all is lost.

I'm just saying. I'm still waiting for the education journalists to ask why the city hasn't collected the $527 million in overdue property taxes, why some zip codes show that half of all properties owe taxes, and how can the schools sustain a weak collection policy on taxes that mostly pay for schools.

Mark McDonald, the last journalist to ask about this, found that official reports were even higher than the amount posted on Hallwatch.org, a good government website.

Hallwatch data not good enough? So get the real numbers. Prediction: they're the same numbers Hallwatch gets as a result of a FOIA request for monthly numbers provided on a disk that are downloaded into user friendly web forms that allow the user to search city data released to satisfy the Freedom of Information Act request.

Little bit more journalism there say than what you find on the city website a few days early, wouldn't you say?

Bottomline: the improvement and viability of the schools is utterly dependent on this money -- so why are good school writers so disinterested on the single best source of revenue for better schools? You guys let Street skate for 8 years on this (except for McDonald, Anthony Twyman, and a few others who quickly abandoned the single greatest responsibility of good government -- paying for itself).

60% x $527 million in overdue taxes = way more than anything PPA is going to get for schools. ANY one interested in finding out why this money isn't getting put to use? Can we really justify not foreclosing on 140,000 properties that owe money and shortchanging a generation of kids? Is that really who Dems are?

If you are not writing about property taxes, then you are not writing about public education. Period. It's just a lot of hot air swirling.

Whether BRT full market value assessments that promise to bring property taxes into the 21st century, or why the city isn't foreclosing assertively on perfectly "good" debt against properties that have never been more valuable -- you are all wasting your time posing as eduction advocates and writers if you aren't daily discussing the issues facing lawmakers in getting this money converted in to real dollars for schools.

Hot air. Gossip. Web site cribbing. School kids deserve better.

What Council and City officials won't talk about if you don't press them: the years that property taxes are owed and amount unpaid to schools, safety, infrastructure, etc.

Years unpaid / Total delinquency

1 $40,600,121.06
2 $37,243,509.84
3 $27,730,978.76
4 $22,330,276.24
5 $21,313,626.61
6 $23,428,277.39
7 $22,694,993.26
8 $20,154,273.51
9 $21,237,650.71
10 $25,329,918.81
11+ $265,039,164.36

If the city just collected ONE of these year's worth of overdue property taxes, it would be a boon to schools.

If Ms. Schorr isn't aware of this debt, or aware of the past policies dealing with it, she'll never get past the obfuscation of council who is afraid that they need the vote of every scofflaw to stay in office.

If I have to pay my property taxes, so do the 10% of all owners who simply don't pay their fair share.

This is the single most critical issue facing schools -- money sitting there uncollected, as a lien against a real asset with more than enough value to cover the debt. How stupid are we going to be, or play at being, until the city makes schools and education FUNDING just as important as who's who.

Only 140,000 of 1.4 million residents owe taxes - but this creates huge upward pressure on rising property tax costs to those who do pay.

Because that money has to come from somewhere in a single fiscal year, those who do pay have to pay more, while those who don't pay get to short schools that are so bad right now that I wouldn't send my dog to them.

What's it gonna be, press? Swing back the balance to sensible foreclosure on property tax debt by realizing what it pays for.

What city expects to have kids who can read and be employable if there are $300 million in overdue taxes JUST on properties who owe property taxes for a DECADE OR MORE? I really don't think they do this in Chicago or NYC. Or Daytona, or Dover.

We need to return to common sense property tax collection if we are going to do line item one for schools.

"* These records come from the Philadelphia Department of Revenue. Hallwatch is not responsible for the accuracy of the Revenue Dept.'s records. They are current as of October 27, 2007" from hallwatch.org

Zip/Neighborhood/Total delinquency/Percent Delinquent

19132 North Phila West $39,300,709.95 --49.8
19133 North Phila East $13,303,481.85 --44.4
19140 Nicetown $35,541,240.02 --43.3
19121 Fairmount North $21,485,403.38 --42.4
19143 Kingsessing $40,330,894.84 --39.6
19139 West Market $25,094,976.29 --39.3
19104 West Philadelphia $23,868,465.28 --35.7
19131 West Park $20,304,097.95 5 --34.9
19122 Spring Garden North $7,624,781.55 --34.1
19138 Germantown East $17,121,400.50 --34.1
19141 Logan $13,549,173.94 --33.7
19144 Germantown $22,355,209.29 --32.8
19146 Schuylkill $13,413,076.82 --30.1
19134 Richmond $24,306,089.05 --27.6
19142 Paschall $10,329,957.13 --26.3
19126 East Oak Lane $5,299,145.41 --25.9
19125 Kensington $7,558,866.43 --25.1
19150 West Oak Lane $7,549,059.27 --23.9
19151 Overbrook $9,089,864.73 --21.9
19119 Mt. Airy $9,225,713.07 --19.6
19123 Spring Garden South $4,926,617.45 --19.5
19145 Point Breeze $9,914,188.74 --18.5
19129 East Falls $2,846,170.87 --17.5
19124 Frankford $14,301,571.83 --17.4
19137 Bridesburg $2,311,229.55 --16.8
19148 Passyunk $10,358,401.21 --16.5
19153 Eastwick $5,131,283.18 --16.1
19120 Olney $9,695,262.01 --15.9
19147 Southwark $10,918,188.48 --13.4
19127 Manayunk $1,563,600.55 --13.2
19130 Fairmount South $5,710,108.11 --13.0
19135 Tacony $3,892,629.13 --12.3
19136 Holmesburg $3,413,129.02 ---9.8
19128 Roxborough $4,663,031.94 ---8.9
19149 Boulevard $3,545,678.81 ---8.8
19103 Center City $13,105,548.49 ---8.6
19112 US Naval Base $2,733,082.33 ---8.0
19154 Torresdale North $3,118,893.09 ---8.0
19111 Fox Chase $4,038,553.30 ---7.7
19152 Bustleton South $2,223,380.55 ---7.3
19114 Torresdale South $3,181,330.28 ---7.2
19107 Center City $3,278,742.95 ---7.1
19116 Somerton $3,293,767.23 ---7.0
19115 Bustleton North $2,251,621.41 ---6.6
19106 Center City $4,769,378.73 ---6.3
19118 Chestnut Hill $2,353,012.17 ---5.7
19102 Center City $2,424,929.00 ---3.8

Why are some neighborhoods allowed to have double digit percentages of nonpaying owners, while other areas of the city are in the small single digits? Why are up an coming areas still full of owners not paying, while more established areas are expected to bear the burden of paying for a huge school system?

It's not just nonuniform, unfair, illegal, and wrongs kids in schools who don't vote. It's insane. No one does this who runs a healthy city.

And no member of a fair press could ever write about schools and fail to add this into every analysis of solutions.

At a minimum, as prudent stewards who take the Nutter goals seriously, we have to get every zip code in no more than single digit percentage of debt.