The three Democratic City Controller candidates were put on the spot last night during their latest debate. The question asked by WHYY’s Chris Satullo was “What in your opinion is the most wasteful department in the city?”

If you fast-forward on this Mp3 to -21:38 on the counter, you can hear all three candidates weigh in on this one. When I heard this question, I thought they’re not going to really answer this one. But they did.

Here is the entire City Controller’s Debate

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Incumbent Alan Butkovitz went first and he delivered the most specific answer. He said, for him, he would put Licenses and Inspections at the top of his list.

John Braxton said “I would say the criminal justice system. Because we have signifiant abuses of overtime both among police and prison guards. These two eat up millions of dollars each year.”

Brett Mandel gave a two-part answer. He said, if you are going to talk about the largest amount of waste, police and the criminal justice system is a great place to look.  As for where there is the most waste “per-capita,” Mandel said it was the Row Offices like the Sheriff’s Office, the Register of Wills, the Clerk of Quarter Sessions, “those are the areas run by ward leaders.”

Last night’s debate was sponsored by WHYY and NEastPhilly.com. It was held at the John Perzel Community Center in Northeast Philadelphia. The turnout was small, less than 50 people, but it was one of the better debates I’ve been to.

If you want to learn something about what the City Controller’s office is supposed to do, and how it uses audits and peformance audits to ferret out waste, it’s a pretty entertaining civics lesson. The debate was pretty lively and Satullo had to tell them to back off each other a few times. I will get a video up, but it may take a little while. The uploading wants to take forever.