By Tom Ferrick

The good thing about the budget crisis is that it gives the city a chance to re-examine its priorities and ask hard questions. One of them is: Is this program really necessary?

Mayor Michael Nutter asked that question earlier and came up with some interesting answers: No to all the city’s swimming pools, no to 11 library branches, no to continued wage cuts. No, no, no. I think Nutter made a mistake when it came to pools and the libraries. These are heavily-used neighborhood assets that I would consider central - not peripheral - to the city’s life.

Consider the pools. They had 1.3 million visitors last summer. Now ask yourself this: what are those kids going to do to fill in the hours they spent last summer at the pool? And what percentages of them are going to get into trouble because of it? But, there are a number of programs/subsidies that could be re-examined and that is exactly what the administration is doing right know. In addition, it plans a series of forums around the city next month to get the ideas of citizens on their priorities.

But, what should be kept and what can be cut?

Here are few of my own suggestions - in the form of questions:

– It would take a Charter change, but why can’t the city do away with the elected row offices? Take the Clerk of Quarter Sessions, please. It costs $9.8 million a year to operate. It is a patronage agency and apparently it is dysfunctional. Last week, the president judge ordered other agencies within the court system to take over its duties because the office was so far behind in processing court fees and fines. The other elected row offices include City Commissioners, who oversee elections (Cost: $12.7 million a year); the Register of Wills ($6.5 million) and the Sheriff’s Office ($25 million) — and no paragon of efficiency itself. Why are these bureaucracies headed by elected officials? Mostly to provide jobs for Democratic ward leaders (three of the four elected heads of these offices are ward leaders). Historically, it dates back to the time when the city of Philadelphia was consolidated with the county of Philadelphia. These were county row offices then and were retained as independent entities under the consolidation. Don’t remember that happening? You shouldn’t. It happened in 1854.

– Can the city eliminate its $2.5 million a year subsidy to the Philadelphia Museum of Art? It is a wonderful institution, a true asset to the city, but it does have a healthy endowment and sources of revenue from admission fees.

– Shouldn’t the city eliminate the $4.3 million the city pays each year for free legal services for its union employees? Again, a wonderful benefit — but can the city really afford at this juncture to hire lawyers to handle city employee divorces, draw up wills for them, etc.?

– Can the city reduce its police complement? The mayor said he wanted to increase it, but is it necessary? A 200-officer reduction would save $20 million a year and police complement would still be higher than in the mid-1990’s under Ed Rendell. Criminal Justice is the largest single component of the city budget - both in terms of employees and cost. As of August, there were 6,685 uniformed police in employ of the city. Could Commissioner Charles Ramsey get the job done with 6,485?

– Can the city find a way to reduce its overtime costs? The overtime bill for government currently totals $165 million a year - a figure that is more than double what it was in 2000. About 60 percent of that is due to OT costs in just two departments: police and prisons. If the city could reduce its OT costs by 10 percent, it would save $16.5 million a year - that’s $82.5 million over 5 years. Ramsey took a first step this year by assigning a command officer to keep an eye on OT in his department.

– Can we scale back or eliminate the city’s Human Relations Commission? I am sure it does wonderful work, but it dates from 1952, before there were state and federal agencies that dealt with issues of job and housing discrimination. Are these services that can be provided by the alphabet-soup list of federal and state anti-discrimination agencies? The agency currently costs about $2.6 million a year to operate.

– Can the city consider privatizing some or all of the tasks done by Health Department district medical centers or Emergency Medical Services? Each provides services that can also be provided by private firms - at a lower cost.

– Can the city work hard to take advantage of the federal government’s infrastructure spending spree? It is too early to say how much it will equal, but getting federal money for street repairs and other capital expenditures could save the millions over time. Every dollar the federal government provides is a dollar the city won’t have to raise through sale of bonds.

– Should the city reconsider its policy of giving health care coverage to retirees? Right now, employees get full health coverage for the first five years after they retire. (The average age at which a city employee retires is 57) This is a perk rarely duplicated in the private sector and it is a costly one.

So many questions. So little time.

The city has to begin acting this year to save money, but it would be unwise to reject these longer-term fixes because they could save millions in the future.