In today’s A-Section of the New York Times, reporter John Hurdle writes about the unique approach the City of Philadelphia is taking in trimming its budget. As the city faces another $1 billion budget gap over the next five years, the city is seeking public input with a series of four citizen budget workshops before proposing program cuts and higher taxes.

The story headlined “Turning to the Public for Advice on a Budget” chronicled the first citizen budget workshop held Thursday, Feb 12. in Northeast Philadelphia. Here’s how the NYT’s described the goal for the night.

Participants wrestled with what officials said were a representative sample of ideas: cutting the police budget by 10 percent, which would result in 929 fewer officers on the streets; closing 23 libraries; or reducing the number of street-repair crews to 18 from 30. The options were presented by city department heads who had been asked to describe the effects of 10, 20 or 30 percent cuts in their budgets.

The story also touches on the frustrations several people had both with the tough choices presented but also with the structure of the workshops. Participants were also given the ability to propose raising fees and taxes as a way to balance the city’s budget which is experiencing a steep drop in tax collections.

“Almost everything that we are doing is on the revenue side,” he (Chris McLeester) told about 20 fellow Philadelphians on Thursday in a working group at St. Dominic’s School in the northeast part of the city. “If you keep on raising taxes, people are just going to move out of the city.”

“It was very flawed,” said Gloria Gilman, 59, a lawyer from the Mount Airy section of the city. “It was designed to get people to accept the cuts. The mayor is going to cut what he thinks is appropriate. They should be raising taxes.”

Portland, Ore is the only other major city that is organizing large forums seeking public input in the drafting of the budget.

The next budget workshop is Wednesday, Feb. 18 at Mastery Charter School located at 5700 Wayne Ave. in Philadelphia. Registration begins at 6:00pm.

Related links:

Downloadable copy of the worksheet being used in the Philadelphia forums.

FAQ’s on the budget workshops

Chris Satullo’s write up of the first budget workshop

Video of the panel discussion given at the beginning of the workshop

Website for The Penn Project for Civic Engagement which is leading the workshops

WHYY is also helping organizing and put on the citizen workshops