As Chris explained in his preliminary report on last night’s citizen budget workshop, each group was given the task of coming up with 100 “points” worth of cuts or revenue increases in order to balance the budget. The points system was put in place to remove the confusion of + and - for cuts and revenue boosts and to get rid of the commas and extra zeroes associated with multimillion dollar figures. Each point was worth about $2 million with the total goal being to eliminate a $200 million gap for fiscal year 2010 (beginning July 1, 2009).

A complete list of all of the possible choices, their point values and their potential impact to the city can be found at this link (.pdf).

Most groups were made up of about 20 or 30 people but since attendance waaay exceeded expectations, a larger overflow group of about 100 met in the auditorium and were moderated by Harris Sokoloff and Chris Satullo. Hmmm… I see where this is heading. 100 people, two moderators, $200 million… chaos.

Ah but not so.

Satullo and Sokoloff broke the group down further into smaller groups of 8 or 9 so that they could go through the budget choices and place them into one of four different categories, the first of which was the “Low Hanging Fruit” - the things that could be agreed upon quickly and easily. Not suprisingly, there aren’t many of these tasty treats left on the branches but if I were Jeff Lurie and Joe Banner, I’d avoid some Catholic school auditoriums for the next couple weeks. Also, this group was pretty hasty to raise the tax on amusement, ignoring the economist maxim that if you tax something that can move or decrease, it will do so. I guess I better get ready to be about 20 percent less amused next year. C’est la vie.

An interesting point was raised when one group member proposed cutting several “administrative” functions as low hanging fruit, among them the funding given by the Commerce Department to the Philadelphia Film Office. Another participant came to the defense of the Film Office with the argument that it represents one of those expenditures that actually pays for itself and brings additional revenue back to the city. After a lively discussion, the group came to the conclusion that the Film Office could stay but maybe they could cut a position or two. So after a brief discussion like that the idea that “administrative” cuts were low hanging fruit was defeated. Not too easy, it is folks?

Interestingly enough, and Chris alluded to this in his post, the idea of reducing the Prison Department by 20 percent, resulting in the closure of at least one prison, was brought up both as a “Low Hanging Fruit” (defeated) and then as a “Tough Choice” where it actually carried the necessary 50 percent of the vote. In what I had assumed to be a fairly socially conservative room, the idea that our prison system contains way too many non-violent drug offenders had a surprising level of acceptance.

The 311 system was proposed as an easy way to score a couple points before the President of the Juniata Town Watch came to its defense and explained 311’s role as a relief to an overburdened 911 system. She even had a 311 success story to share, having reported a busted street one day and seeing a city car at the site the next. That seemed enough to sway the audience and 311 survived this group’s axe.

When it came to revenue enhancements, the group debated the idea of a .1 percent increase in the wage tax. State Representative Tony Payton defended that idea against charges from another group member who said that such an increase would only cause retail to flee from the city. Payton, who formerly a housing counselor who educated low-income families on personal finance, may have been speaking from experience when he said that such an increae of “one penny on the dollar” could make people of lower income stop and think before spending their money on expensive consumer goods that they really don’t need. As he put it there are too many people out there who “live off lobster when they only have hamburger means.”

Others suggested things that clearly violated the state’s uniformity clause or taxation plans like “raise the wage tax for all of the really rich people and make an exemption for anyone who isn’t really rich.” One woman who had seemed somewhat in favor of some tax increases quickly pointed out the problem with that one: all of the rich people will just move away. In the end, raising the wage tax didn’t quite get the 75 percent it needed to be considered low hanging fruit.

Perhaps the most telling part of the evening was the “no way no how” process in which the groups declared certain cuts to be completely off limits - initially. By the time this part of the process was over, they had removed over 100 points from consideration, just about guaranteeing that they wouldn’t be able to close the budget gap. As the session went on, several of these “no way no how” - cuts to fire, police, recreation centers and increaes to certain taxes - were brought back into the discussion as it became clear that sacrifices would have to be made.

In the end, this group of 100 reached about 64 points, representing about 64 percent of the budget shortfall for next year. If not for time limitations brought about by the size of the group, they may have even found more. Most importantly, however, they made clear the values behind their choices. They made clear why certain services are important to them and why other things, if cut, would have to be cut very carefully.

Three more of these workshops to go.