Turnout at the budget workshops was double what organizers expected

By Marisa McClellan

Driving up to the Mastery Charter School last Wednesday night, I was taken aback by how brightly lit and open the building seemed. So often, school buildings at night are spooky, forlorn places. Not Mastery Charter though, it was blazing, ready for the influx of Philadelphia citizens who were coming to participate in second community budget forum. Just that day, news had hit the papers and airwaves that the city council was considering charging city residents a separate fee for trash pick-up and the prospect of that unprecedented bill had people streaming into the Mastery gym, ready to hear more about the state of the city budget going forward into the next five years.

I had some idea of what to expect when I walked in, having read Patrick Cobbs’ thorough account of the first budget workshop. The gym was packed, with people milling around the back of the room where the organizers had set up coffee, soda, bottles of water and a few snacks. Nearly every seat in the vast space was taken and where there were no chairs, people sat on the floor, backs up against the brightly painted walls.

Harris Sokoloff from the Penn Project for Civic Engagement started the program by welcoming those in attendance. He laid out the meat of the workshop, stressing how the goal of the evening was to generate feedback for Mayor Nutter and the City Council, so that they could make the hard budgetary decisions with the input of the citizenry in mind.

Tom Ferrick took the control of the microphone at the point, in order to welcome a panel of government staffers (including Managing Director Dr. Camille Barnett) and introduce a short discussion, designed to give attending citizens a better understanding of the financial issues that city is currently facing.

To greatly summarize what they said over the 25 minute discussion, the city is facing a $170 million shortfall come July (when the 2010 budget year begins) and is looking at a $1 billion shortfall over the next five years (they are legally obligated to project five years out into the future, in order to plan a balanced budget). The shortfalls are due in part because many of the taxes upon which the city relies have slowed or declined. Add to that rising healthcare costs for city workers and the fact that their pension fund requires a higher pay-in from the city (Philadelphia currently has more retirees than active employees) and we’re facing some bleak financial times as a community.

Dr. Barnett stressed that trade-offs will be inevitable during this process and that, according to the mayor, everything is currently on the table for consideration. No decisions have been made and the input gathered at these budget workshops will be seriously considered. The only bright spot in the parade of grim news was that city officials do forecast that sometime next calendar year, the revenue decline will stop and at least level out.

After Tom Ferrick had exhausted his questions for the city panel, the evening’s organizers broke the attendees into groups, depending on the numbers written on their name tags. Trained facilitators led their workshop groups off into a number of classrooms to begin the hard work of choosing cuts and tax increases, in an attempt to balance out the city’s budget. For more info on the agreement process, check out this previous coverage on It’s Our City.

There were so many folks in attendance the night I was there, that they had to add an extra session for those who didn’t get a numbered name tag. I listened to this spillover group, happy to hear so many people speak out in favor of services for homeless and heartbroken to understand how deeply many of these cuts are going to have an impact on the average Philadelphian.

The key thing I took away at the end of the night was the understanding that there are no easy answers in this budgetary process. I was grateful to be educated in the reality of the situation and wish that people had turned out in even greater numbers, as everyone is going to be effected by the shortfall.