Philadelphia is facing a strange new problem. If you have a corrupt agency that attempts to reform itself, is that really reform?
This has been one nasty week for the Bureau of Revision of Taxes. This is the office that assesses the value of buildings and homes in Philadelphia. This week, The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a [...]

The City of Philadelphia’s initial contract proposal for its blue collar workers was dismissed yesterday as “Totally Ridiculous.” Marcia Gelbart of the Philadelphia Inquirer reports this morning that the city is offering zero wage increases and reductions in benefits for new hires. DC 33 union leader Pete Matthews says the economic crisis is temporary and [...]

Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences announced this morning
that it will cut salaries by 5 percent for all workers earning more than
$30,000 a year. Carolyn Belardo, a spokeswoman for the academy, which has a $13 million budget, says the move will save the organization $317,000 annually.

The fate of former democratic Pennsylvania State Senator Vince Fumo is now in the hands of a jury. He is charged with defrauding the Senate, his neighborhood  non-profit and the Seaport Museum out of about $4 million.  No one is expecting a quick verdict because jurors will have to decide on 139 counts [...]

The public will get its chance tomorrow to hear analysis of last month’s budget workshops. Chris Satullo, WHYY’s Executive Director of News and Civic Dialogue, and Harris Sokoloff from the Penn Project for Civic Engagement who together organized the events will present a summary to top city staffers and possibly city council members.

By Chris Satullo
This morning, Harris Sokoloff and I delivered our final report on the yield from the four Tight Times, Tough Choices budget workshops to Mayor Michael Nutter and his cabinet.
We spent about an hour going over the input and the findings from this exercise in asking more than 1,700 residents of the city to [...]

The William Penn Foundation is expected announce a major grant to help implement the Action Plan for the Central Delaware later this morning. In a statement released over the weekend by the Mayor’s Office of Philadelphia, it states that the grant will provide funding for “the revitalization of the Delaware riverfront by creating a sustainable [...]

The fourth and final citizen budget forum will be held tonight at 7 p.m. at Pinn Memorial Baptist Church, 2251 N. 54th Street in Philadelphia. Registration begins at 6 p.m. Citizens are being asked for their input as the city is faced with a $200 million budget gap for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
This [...]

Philadelphia’s embattled social services agency, Department of Human Services, has sped up visits to children age five and younger. That is one of the findings of the Community Oversight Board report released this afternoon .The report said the following:
DHS has fully implemented an Expedited Response (ER) program that provides a 0–2 hour response time for [...]

By Tom Ferrick
There was a piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer the other day about trends in naming children that pointed out what has been true for several decades now - naming, which used to be a bow to tradition, is becoming a matter of personal expression.
Naming the kid after your father or grandfather or favorite [...]