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Prior to breaking into small groups and making decisions about how to close the city’s $200 million budget gap for next year, citizens who attended last night’s workshop got a primer in city finances from the folks who deal with them every day. Managing Director Dr. Camille Barnett, Finance Director Rob Dubow, Mayor’s Chief of Staff Clay Armbrister and Budget Director Steve Agostini were questioned by WHYY’s own Chris Satullo for about 20 minutes about the how’s and why’s of a gaping budget deficit. They were joined on the panel by Uri Monson, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority (PICA), the state-mandated agency in charge of overseeing and approving the city’s budget plans.

Satullo began with a simple question: “Where. Did. The. Money. Go?” Dubow answered by explaining how the global economic downturn has affected both Philadelphia’s revenues and expenses like pension liabilities. Other questions included:

1. Why can’t Philly just enact its own stimulus plan and cut taxes like the federal government?

2. Speaking of stimuli, we’re ok now that the Obama plan has been approved, right?

3. What about all of that waste and inefficiency?

4. But you just cut a billion out of the five year plan last November. Why are we doing this again?

5. Are property tax abatements under consideration? (That was an unexpected audience question.)

6. Can we just raise taxes and make up the difference?

And many others. Check out the video above to see the whole session and get a preview of what next week’s sessions will be like. Video running time is about 22 minutes.

The city officials did what they could to explain how the budgeting process works and Monson from PICA talked about how his organization has been working with the city to find other solutions and insure that the revenue projections are correct. (Apparently, a lot of economists got things very wrong back in June. So, if anything, this is their fault. Pitchforks and torches to the nearest economist’s lab, anyone?)

The next workshop is Wednesday, February 18, in Germantown at the Mastery Charter School. Registration starts at 6pm and event begins at 7pm. If last night’s turnout is any indication of what to expect, be sure to get there early.

Coming next… what did I observe as 100 or so who couldn’t fit into the small groups tried to shrink that budget gap? In some ways, the wisdom of crowds prevailed.