By Albert Yee

More than 500 Philadelphians gathered at Mastery Charter School in Germantown to talk about the city’s ever-growing budget crisis. The crowd was 200 more than event organizers had expected, but there was more than enough room in the gigantic gym for all. Getting everyone’s concerns addressed was another issue altogether.

To say Philadelphians are opinionated on the subject matter is a gross understatement. The Penn Project for Civic Engagement knows this and made every effort to make breakout groups manageable and also introduced a “Wailing Wall” (pictured above) for people to leave comments and two-minute video testimonials; this session’s videos are up here.

The 500+ split up into a dozen groups scattered along the sprawling charter school’s campus. The goal of the evening was to pluck out parts of the budget that citizens felt comfortable doing without; whether it be unanimous decision (Low Hanging Fruit) or ones which only carried a 50% margin (Shared Pain). This is the .pdf citizens were handed to look through with all the cuts and revenue items. I tagged along with the 21 citizens who made up Group 3. Several in the group immediately had concerns about the general concept of the forum; Anne wanted more information, Margaret had several amendments to the official handout to talk about. Co-moderator Joan Davis‘ voice was audibly shaky initially from the burst of opinions coming at her from all sides of the room, but regained her composure and laid down the rules for the session as her co-moderator Pete Lafferty readied the gigantic Post-It board for comments.

As the group of 21 split into yet smaller breakout groups to discuss the possible budgetary cuts, I joined Gloria Gillman (of Philly Neighborhood Networks) in her group (conveniently located right next to my chair).

Gillman immediately brought out a work sheet [.pdf] put together by The Coalition for Essential Services designed to increase revenue while cutting no essential city services. She suggested implementing item 3b from that flier:

ACTION: Roll back Wage Tax to 2004 level to half a percentage point higher then currently set: 3.9% to 4.5 % - While also exempting low wage families such as: a family of four making $35,000 a year or less.

IMPACT: Could generate $ 112,000,000.

This got everyone’s attention in the group and was brought up in full discussion later on. The goal of the session was to come up with cuts to save $200 million, which was translated into points worth $2 million each. Gillman’s suggestion would net 56 points right off the bat. But Deputy Mayor and Michael Nutter’s Chief of Staff Clay Armbrister chimed in with a correction: The city would not be able to reap the full benefit of such an action. There was an issue with gambling revenues and full recouping of wage tax collection. The actual benefit could be as low as 18 points or as high as 32 points.

There were strong opinions in the larger breakout group, but everyone was agreeable to hear one another’s concerns. When discussing Shared Pain options - the items that didn’t get a 75% majority vote - in the larger group, people accepted the majority decision. Eric Cheung, Philadelphia Diesel Difference Coordinator/Clean Air Council senior attorney, suggested that the larger group not discuss Service Area (Nos. 1-16 on the work sheet) cuts and instead focus on Revenue Actions (Nos. 17-26) to which everyone agreed. The item the group decided to share the pain for was an amendment to No. 22 REAL ESTATE. The group voted to end the 10-year tax abatement. This is an issue Mayor Nutter discussed during previous. Nutter said he was open to a sun setting of the abatement, meaning that new constructions could get seven-, five-, three- or one-year abatements down the line instead of getting rid of them cold turkey.

The new proposed P.I.L.O.T. Program [Payment In Lieu Of Taxes] - which would have large nonprofit institutions (think Penn, IBX, ARC) pay a fee in lieu of taxes - brought out lively discussion and confusion. Linda (pictured above) was confused as to whether it was a test project or a real policy change because of the acronym used. Others in the group were worried that medical facilities (HUP, Jefferson) would suffer; Moderator Joan suggested splitting nonprofit entities with medical institutions so the health-care providers weren’t touched.

Maurice Sampson, President of the Niche Recycling and Chair of the RecycleNOW Campaign, claimed that UPenn was a state within the city with an annual operating budget just a few points lower than the city of Philadephia’s. With that in mind, he didn’t see an issue with the ever-increasing sprawl of UPenn’s reach in West Philly being taxed. Sampson noted that their commercial real estate properties should, at the very least, be a part of the P.I.L.O.T. program, pointing out the Sansom Commons area specifically. P.I.L.O.T. is estimated to bring in some $38 million annually. Unfortunately, a city representative in our group noted that P.I.L.O.T. couldn’t be implemented in the next fiscal year.

In the No Way, No How section of items, the group was not willing to cut Courts (further delays unacceptable); Fairmount Park/Recreation (public spaces should not be sacrificed); the Free Library (access to books should not be sacrificed); or Public Health. Margaret (above) noted the particular need for those without insurance to have Public Health receive as much funding as possible.

The group raised their hands and agreed to cuts and revenue options totaling 93 points according to the final moderator write-up, the highest total for the night.

During this set of community forums, there are no end-of-the-night recaps with all groups reporting back to the main room. This probably was for the better to get the maximum amount of discussion in all breakout groups and for people to get back home after a long day. (The event wrapped up after 9.30 p.m.). More people were frustrated at this forum than in past forums I’ve attended in the last year-plus for this project. One forum-goer went as far as to claim this entire set of budget workshop forums as a large public-relations campaign to get people to accept cuts in advance of the implementation of cuts down the line. We’ll all see how the mayor and his administration take to the suggestions of the masses soon enough.

A flickr set of photos from the evening that did not fit into the post above are here.

(Check out Yee’s personal blog at www.dragonballyee.com/blog)