When we started this project of civic dialogue and issues journalism a little more than a year ago, we dubbed it Great Expectations, fully expecting that its message would serve as a minority point of view through a raucous and nasty election year.
When we decided early on to culminate the project's first year by writing and presenting for public debate a draft Citizen's Agenda for Philadelphia's Future, we fully expected this to be a renegade document, a counterpoint of ambition, optimism and idealism to what we expected back would be the cramped, backward-looking pragmatism of the winning candidate.
Well. Turns out Great Expectations are the order of the New Day declared by new Mayor Michael Nutter, who was inaugurated today. Who'd a thunk it?
As for the Agenda, By the time we were done scarfing up the best ideas from Philadelphia citizens, the best notions of local experts, and the best practices from other cities, and distilled them into the document, it ended up bearing more than a family resemblance to Nutter's own platform.
There's hardly an ambitious, innovative or progressive idea we heard about that doesn't pop up in some Nutter action plan or policy paper.
It's been an odd situation; the Agenda at times has felt less urgent a piece of work, simply because Nutter's staff was getting to all the same places, the same ideas and aspirations. But it was a good kind of odd, because when was the last time Philly was run by people who were that embracing of innovation, optimism and stretch goals?
But today, in his inaugural address, I thought Michael Nutter may have overdone the Great Expectations. As he ticked off his goals, and his standards of success (on which, make no mistake, people will judge him down the road), you almost wanted to pulll him aside and say, for his own good, "Yo, Mike! Chill. Back off a bit. Quit promising the impossible."
They were almost "groovy expectations," because you had to wonder what Nutter was smoking when he decided to make such goals the centerpiece of his first address as mayor.
As Tom Ferrick points out in his live blogging, each of the goals - cutting the homicide rate by 30-50 percent in four years, cutting the dropout rate in half, and doubling the educational attainment rate (percentage of residents with bachelor's degrees) - is wildly ambitious.
And with each, Nutter set himself up to be judged according to measures over which he has only marginal control.
Yes, he'll run the police department, and, yes, it will be great to have a mayor who spends more energy seeking to reduce the murder rate than seeking to explain it away. But, in John Street's defense, murders can happen in random clusters that don't really reflect how the broader, and thus more meaningful trends, in crime are moving. As he and Sylvester Johnson never tired of pointing out (even as, in other ways, they seemed utterly tired and burned out), overall violent crime in the ctiy was dropping, even as the rise in the murder rate captivated attention.
In other words, Nutter has agreed to have his mayoralty judged by how a small, distinct but lethal group of poorly educated young men with anger control problems decide to behave.
As a symbolic statement that a new day has arrived, bold talk about curbing homicides was needed and welcome. But as a political strategy, it's breathtakingly risky.
But you could say Nutter had little choice but to do something like that on the central issue of violent crime.
Not so on the other two bold goals on dropouts and college attainment. How to explain his embrace of those amabitious targets - when as mayor he will neither control the city schools, nor college financial aid and admissions policies, not to mention the dysfunctional family dynamics that often lead kids to drop out of school or college?
As Tom mentions, the rise in college attainment he set may simply be mathematically impossible to achieve in the time he allotted for it.
These are stretch goals that Gumby would be challenged by.
The possible explanations for this audacity are a) Michael Nutter is wildly naive and utterly unprepaed for the complexity of what awaits or b) he's deadly serious about achieving greatness for his city, and thinks setting impossible goals is needed to create momentum towards greatness.
At this point, I've still got my money on (b).
Comments (6)
Nutter will not have to control city schools to make gains. As mayor, he just has to fund schools to start, at the level they request. Right now the schools spend about $7,000 per child a year, but request a more suburban funding of about $15K per child, and we have the money.
Street just didn't want to collect overdue property taxes. But $527 million in overdue property taxes, the lowball estimate, can go a long way.
The top estimate, by Mark McDonald of the DN, now with the Nutter administration, is that the city has $700 million in overdue taxes. Even better for Nutter.
Students of the Rendell success knows that Rendell sold overdue property tax debt to a private collector to create the $80 million city surplus. Why Street chose not to continue to do so is a mystery that the press never seemed to want to explore.
Collecting property taxes and growing a thriving property tax base that increases city revenue pay in is what makes the Nutter goals realistic.
When half of what the Dept. of Revenue takes in goes right to the schools (about half) then you have a system that works, if you make sure that money gets paid in full and in a reasonable time. We can't just put off debts to the schools and city when a person sells a house or dies, or never, when the relatives want the a valuable asset for a few dollars without catching up the bills. If they can't afford to zero out the debt against the property, an public auction can find an owner who will. And the new owner will pay each year in full and on time, not accruing liens.
Lien debt hurts the city. Reducing liens (old debts against a property with real value) makes the city able to meet it's responsibilities and costs.
No city can have hundreds of millions in overdue taxes that are years and years old.
***If the city just auctioned off property to the highest bidder those properties that owed taxes for 10 years or more, there would be $300 million in property tax liens alone collected, $150 million going to schools.***
Why harp about the PPA without investigating that avenue is another print press mystery to me.
www.hallwatch.org/proptax/about/redelinq/stats/summary
Plus, there would be untold liens in gas and water, as well as fines collected finally. A property can't transfer ownership unless all liens are paid first. Nutter has to be firm, but fair.
Nutter knows that the city has to make liens paid in order to transfer non-arms length deeds to a relative. That makes sense, but that is not the case under Street. Grandma has to pay her utility bill and property taxes, and she can when her house transfers to a new owner or is sold to a new owner.
Other cities do this. The entire rest of the state does this. Why don't we? The system should be completely fair and impermeable to politics. Right now, it's spotty.
The RDA can remove liens, for example. The PHA does this. Liens can be "erased," cheating the city, for certain housing projects that seem not to be built on time, but whose builders are generous and politically involved. The city has to go back and correct this.
Then, the city has to foreclose or sell the debt to a foreclosing agency for auction. If the affordable housing builder is effective, they'll build their project before the final sheriff sale. If not, a new owner will come in and build. There is no third alternative of "wait and see" if they build and let them not pay the liens indefinitely.
www.hallwatch.org/proptax/about/redelinq/stats/topdelinquents/mailingaddress
Why, in fact, doesn't the press ever cover this? It's basic good government.
When you take care of your revenues coming in, making sure they are currently paid or in the hands of a foreclosure law firm that is taking care of it, you get your bills paid that fund education as needed. We can afford $15K per child if we get tough with the deadbeats, even the well meaning ones.
We can afford hiring contractors to run disciplinary schools outside of the PSD whose rate of graduation remains separately calculated but whose students don't slow down rest. We can afford to make more schools that require standards to get into, who represent some of the best schools not only in Philly, but in the nation.
We can afford public safety and funding the police at the level they require. Ditto the DA, the courts, and new high quality prison programming and space.
We can afford it because Philly is a city of owners. Street saw Philly as a city of tenants in government subsidized houses or houses owned by a previous owner that the next generation never probates, never paying the bills. This just doesn't work on every municipal level. That's why no other city does it.
If a property owes over $3,000 or 3 years, the property should be in the hands of foreclosure. We can calculate how many properties have to foreclose in order to fund schools and safety at Nutter's goals. The city will need about 1,000 foreclosures on the largest lien debt a month at least. And sales of city held property, openly and competitively have to proceed apace.
If the city finally forecloses against the valuable properties that have old debt (there is no "bad debt" against real property), then the city's most lofty goals will be realized.
When is the press going to advocate for having the city collect what is owed it for the sake of everyone, rather than trying to protect a few districts of no-questions-asked voters? There's a one to one correspondence of uncollected property taxes to lax or even unethical council members:
www.hallwatch.org/proptax/about/redelinq/stats/delinqbyzip/index_html?skey=pcent&rkey=pcent
There's a one to one correspondence of too low property taxes to bad politicians coming from that district or ward.
Property taxes that are not collected or that are ten years out of date cheat the city -- all of us. It cheats schools, it cheats safety, it creates government policy related blight and crime.
Why did Street feel he needed to preserve those enclaves as his first order of business?
Why did the press never call him on it?
Posted by lj | January 7, 2008 7:38 PM
Posted on January 7, 2008 19:38
Nutter has to make nice as he changes the revenue of the city from dependent on job killing taxes to dependent on real time property tax assessments.
Jeff Shields' article in today's paper shows people calling for fair, uniform assessments. What he doesn't say is how much the city is cheating itself out of good schools, enough police, street cleaning up to national standards, and infrastructure like a safe South St. Bridge (soon to be renamed the John Street Bridge).
People who don't get their market values reassessed for decades tend to not realize what their market value is. That means they don't do upkeep, invest in improvements, and try to fool assessors with fake bad exteriors and nice interiors. Fair Market Value has to fly in the city sooner rather than later.
It's only fair that people know, and we can fix the bugs as we go. Let people pay the 2008 property taxes already calculated, but put in the new data. Council will really have to change the millage at that point.
Everyone simultaneously dragging their feet is making Nutter have to make nice in worry as to what will happen if this is all done at once.
Cheating schools, however, it no longer an option, to buy quiet.
Posted by Anonymous | January 9, 2008 5:16 AM
Posted on January 9, 2008 05:16
All of Nutter's goals are doable once the press accepts that owners have to pay a tax on the actual, real, market values of their properties, and not just a few owners, singled out, who are good citizens while all the others who own cry low income.
Property tax is not an income tax. Seniors get a tax freeze, so there's no need to worry. What is the problem?
Posted by Anonymous | January 9, 2008 5:18 AM
Posted on January 9, 2008 05:18
Maybe the city of great expectations needs to outline its expectations on property taxes and how they pay for schools and safe, clean streets. An advertising campaign of slogans like "Don't cheat schools when your property taxes come due!" or "Safe streets need you to pay your property taxes in full and on time!"
There is an outrageous amount of overdue taxes, and it seems concentrated in the areas, conversely, with the LOWEST of all property taxes.
Is this a case where the city has to be cruel to a few to be kind to the many vulnerable kids and victims who depend on the wise stewardship of that revenue?
Wisdom is the best choice for the many in need, not just the best choice to preserve a voting bloc of low property taxes out of skew with real values now.
Posted by Anonymous | January 9, 2008 5:28 AM
Posted on January 9, 2008 05:28
Will the tax reform commission members lend their voices to this dialogue? Better still, someone now in Nutter govt? You can post anonymously, it seems. We'd like to knowhow to push for realistic and prompt and visible action on this.
One particular reason - many upstaters think of us as a hole that the rest of the state pours money into. If in a single year we could demonstrate policy change, council acceptance and action, and revenue increases at the end of that first year I think we'd have more backing for other agendas, such as state school funding, taxing of gasoline to fund gasoline alternatives, coal taxing to fund clean (and local / state-based jobs) alternatives, etc. etc.
Posted by Bill Marston | January 25, 2008 3:11 PM
Posted on January 25, 2008 15:11
Bill Marston is right. We don't have to be the "hole" that the state pours money into, since we are fully able to use the currently existing property tax base to pay for schools people take seriously and for abolishing wage taxes, the BPT, and gross wage tax.
No one uses such taxes because they have such a chilling effect on business. Only a truly private enterprise hating municipal government would labor to preserve such taxes if they really wanted jobs in the city, not just calling for them to fall from the sky.
Philly is not a gun crazed, drugged out child-adult who can't pay his bills or support himself.
We are a city of property tax paying owners. We can grow that property tax base by allowing private owners to buy land held in limbo by the city.
That revenue is the chief source of revenue for all the goals of the city, of Nutter, and of the Ink/DN. There's no getting around collecting property taxes for Nutter to blast through his first year.
Posted by ljlong | February 4, 2008 5:46 AM
Posted on February 4, 2008 05:46