Citizen blogger Margit Olsen returns to the Great Expectations blogging team. She's in her mid-20s and preparing to go back to school in order to become a special-education teacher. She moved to Philly three years ago from Delaware and currently lives in West Philly with her girlfriend, dog and three cats.
Margit writes:
I had the pleasure of attending the first of 10 forums to be held in the coming weeks on April 29, 2008. It took place at 7 p.m. at St. Gabriel’s School, 2917 Dickinson St. I was one of about 50 citizens that showed up for the event. Although this forum did not take place in my particular neighborhood, I felt a sense of community among those there. We were all there to talk about making our city a better place under our new mayor.
The night started out looking at some budget numbers. The proposed budget for FY 2008-09 is $3.897 billion, which was presented by the mayor’s budget director Steve Agostini and assistant budget director Julie Wertheimer. This part of the presentation was a little bit dry. I can’t say that I honestly understand where this money comes from, where it goes, and since I still need help filing my 1040 EZ, I would be the last person to turn to for help understanding these numbers. However, I was struck by the revelation that two-thirds of the city’s budget goes to payroll, pension, and other employee benefits for city workers.
Mr. Agostini assured us that he had worked on many budgets, and this is how it is in every city. It just seems like two-thirds is a pretty big chunk. Ms. Wertheimer presented about the five subjects we would be breaking up to discuss later in the evening. They were as follows: Public Safety, Education, Jobs and Economic Development, Healthy and Sustainable Neighborhoods, and Ethics. All of these discussions centered on customer service and what the city could do to provide its citizens with the best customer service possible in regards to these subject areas.
The final presenter was Patrick Morgan, who talked about the new 311 system and PhillyStat. 311 is a non-emergency number used to access government and service information. It seems that at this time there are more than 500 hotline numbers to call for problems in Philadelphia. The main goal of the new 311 system is to condense all these numbers into a one-stop shop available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. The goal is to have the 311 system rolled out by the end of the year. I now wonder if it is the calendar year or the fiscal year. This, according to Mr. Morgan, is a very big goal. So perhaps we should wait and see how it all pans out.
As for PhillyStat, it is a discussion and collaboration between city departments. It is open to the public, and members meet every Monday and Wednesday at 1 p.m. at 1515 Arch St. on the 18th Floor. They also broadcast these meetings on Monday and Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. on Channel 64.
After Mr. Morgan’s presentation, we were greeted by a special guest, Mayor Nutter. Mayor Nutter had stopped by to thank everyone for coming and to encourage us to give feedback about the way we feel the city is and what could be done to improve everything.
After the presentations, we each selected one of the topics discussed earlier that we would like to discuss in greater detail. We would be answering the following questions: Why was this topic important to us? How would we measure success or improvement in this area? And how could the city improve customer service? I chose Healthy and Sustainable Neighborhoods. The forum was held in South Philly and I live in West Philly. But Philly is a city known for its neighborhoods, and I was eager to hear ways that we could all come together. The main concern for my group was the overwhelming amount of litter in Philadelphia; every person at the table wants to see cleaner streets. We also talked about the success of the citywide clean-up and suggested that such events be made a more regular occurrence. However, we also talked about how if such events were held too often, engagement would taper off.
We also talked about enforcing curfews for young adults, creating community gardens, increasing recycling pick-up, reviving community/rec centers, and cleaning out alley ways. One older person in my group wanted to see the neighborhood return to what it was 20 years ago and suggested that with this increased sense of community we would see a decline in violence and also litter. To me, it seemed like this is exactly what people want. There were 12 of us in this particular group, and we all were engaged in the idea of building up our community. You would think it wouldn’t be that hard, especially since most of the people at this meeting live in this district. Why can’t we make it work?
For the older people in my group there was a lot of discussion of enforcing curfews. Once curfews are enforced, there would be a reduction in “noise pollution.” I’m not sure that the kids are necessarily to blame for all or even most of the noise pollution. So, I’m not sure that for me this is something that I would be begging the Mayor’s Office to start doing.
I do think that one thing that was missing from this discussion was the need for more affordable housing. The fact that there are hundreds of people living on our streets and thousands between streets and shelters is something that needs to be re-evaluated. I know that recently the city decided to keep the café/overnight drop-in centers open in order to keep more people off the street. However, that is not a long-term solution. Our communities aren’t only about the people who live on our blocks or in our neighborhoods; it extends to all the people who live in our city.
Overall, I would say that the session was enlightening. I felt like what we put down on paper will be evaluated and that having a relatively open dialogue with the Mayor’s Office is a great responsibility and a privilege. I hope that all of these meetings go as well as this one did.
Comments (4)
The city has a lot of affordable housing, but it doesn't use it well. For example, PHA has scattered site housing that is "housing for life" for people who don't need it anymore.
There is a lady in our neighborhood who lives in PHA scat site housing who drives a Mercedes SUV with vanity plates. I think she's ready to transition to the regular rental market. People who need the housing can't get off the wait list.
PHA, like other social programs, has to have term limits. There has to be a lifetime max, like welfare. I personally think that five years is plenty unless the person has a disability or is a senior.
Unless PHA and other groups getting HUD funds start adhering to a more businesslike model of renting, tenants really won't be able to get ready for the real world.
You can see it all around South Philly -- too many PHA tenants are into or allow drug sales in their apartments, hallways, front steps, and loitering and trash is prevalent in the Scattered Site program.
PHA needs an accounting system whereby they can query and address and see the associated costs with it. That way they can say this location is consistently troubled, it's likely a problem out of PHA control entirely due to location or history, the house is stand alone and is in terrible condition, let's sell it for better housing.
PHA has to make cost v. benefit analyses of its properties. That is going to decrease costs, improve neighborhoods, but most of all, it's going to increase affordable housing.
PHA also needs to be more open, transparent, and allow more direct written complaints, such as with an online form, to be registered. This will improve the PHA image while letting PHA get a true sense of direction and timing of closing out old housing that it can't afford to manage.
Good business management = more affordable housing.
Posted by Anonymous | May 2, 2008 3:15 PM
Posted on May 2, 2008 15:15
We need street cleaning again. The city only has to contract out for that so as not to increase the 2/3rds of the budget that goes to pensions, salaries, and benefits.
And no, there are cities that do not spend 2/3rds of their budgets on pensions, salaries, and benefits. In Philly, no one is willing to do even the simplest reform like co-pays or contracting out for services like street cleaning to avoid adding costly city employees. People move here to work here and can't believe how regressive it is. Nutter can just ask his out of state hires if he doesn't believe that other cities are fine with having contract jobs that allow people to enter the workplace without the city having to commit to them for life.
Someone sometimes is going to have to grow the stones to tell the unions that they will be living in the same world the rest of us live in. Having fully vested city employees do (or not do) every function is wasteful and foolish. No city but Philly tries to do that.
City employees need to pay a co-pay just like the rest of us, and there need to be fewer old school city employees. But city employees are also expected to be heavily involved in politics and their unions, so they are a self-perpetuating bureaucracy no one can afford.
Can Nutter slay the beast?
Posted by Anonymous | May 2, 2008 3:27 PM
Posted on May 2, 2008 15:27
The revenue for the budget comes from the wage tax and property taxes, primarily. Now there will be casino revenue. This year, according to the article in today's papers, the state casino revenue allocated to Philly will be $55 million, to be used to reduce the job-killing wage tax.
Philly is never going to be able to have the money to address problems until it starts collecting overdue property taxes like any city does.
Here's the info from the city:
Delinquency by Type of Taxpayer
Total Due Total properties
Business $191,320,048.83 36,943
Individual $303,315,540.24 76,693
Total $494,635,589.07 113,636
Years delinquent,
Number properties
Total Owed City for that year
1
34,732
$31,261,207.03
2
14,194
$31,128,538.30
3
8,705
$24,962,556.30
4
5,981
$21,301,166.08
5
4,714
$20,374,306.58
6
3,855
$21,324,590.31
7
4,518
$19,955,949.98
8
3,264
$19,704,787.23
9
2,963
$20,731,880.72
10
3,364
$24,347,492.70
11 or more years
27,037
$259,542,881.84
11 years or more of overdue property taxes, if collected would bring in $259 million in overdue taxes. That's enough for what schools need, what police and safety programs need, and what is needed to have the city clean streets again like a normal city.
All this property is more valuable than ever. There is no property that won't fetch SOMETHING on a tax lien. Plus, it's how the "bad debt" for gas and water is paid also. The city can't keep avoiding this responsibility.
Plus, this is not a "one time" revenue source. New owners are likely to pay their taxes in full and on time.
If we just collected what non-philadelphians owed, that would be $47 million:
Philadelphians vs. Non-Philadelphians
Total Due
Total properties
Philadelphians
$428,565,056.20
99,748
Non-Philadelphians
$47,692,560.70
10,865
www.hallwatch.org/proptax/about/redelinq/stats/summary
So until we start talking about this at community meetings with our politicians, they'll just keep pretending that they don't have to deal with it.
There is no need for one second not to have fully funded schools, police, and street sweeping. Period. End of story. Will citizens educate themselves enough to demand it?
Posted by Anonymous | May 2, 2008 3:46 PM
Posted on May 2, 2008 15:46
At least we know the School District of Philadelphia is doing a great job!
With a fifty percent graduation rate and the Sean Patrick Conroy case, that demonstrated that the district does little to curb its hugh truancy problem, the district is doing a fine job.
Way to go School District of Philadelphia!
Recently, I was on a train going into "the City of Brotherly Love." The lady on the train behind me was terrified - you could hear the fear in her voice - because her husband/friend was not going to pick her up at Suburban Station.
That fear of coming into the city because of roving bands of students, streaming out of school and truant to boot, is doing wonders for the reputation of the city.
Also, where did all that money go for the students' fund at Germantown High School?
Hmmm...$100,000 is a heck of a lot of money. I wonder what other funds are stolen in the district...
- Down in the Basement
Posted by Down in the Basement | May 7, 2008 1:03 PM
Posted on May 7, 2008 13:03