Group Moderators: Greenberg, Seymour, Smith Scheffer

Group Overview:
Our group was composed of 22 participants and included five males, one African American female, one Asian female, and one White female dissenter. Neighborhoods, as identified when participants introduced themselves, included Rhawnhurst, Mount Airy, Mayfair, South Philly and the Northeast. The tenor of the room was for the most part positive and upbeat in light of the nature of the task. Everyone was engaged and on task with very few tangents or sidebar conversations. It was a solid team effort to work to reach the goal which yielded a result of 71 points.

Low Hanging Fruit:
• No. 20 Eagles - 2 points
Immediate and unanimous decision.

• No. 21 Parking - 2 points
Supporting reasons:
o Could reduce the number of vehicles moving in and out of the city.
o Would be better for the environment if there are less vehicles.

Question:
o Garage owners - Do they pay real estate tax?

• No. 17 Amusement - 2 points
Supporting reason:
• Leisure stuff “we can save up for it.”

• No. 3 Drop program - 4 points
Supporting reasons:
o Not used as it was intended, e.g., to be used to replenish the police and firefighter pool (takes 1½ years to complete training and testing); to keep employees from giving only two weeks notice that they were retiring, leaving critical positions vacant.
o Program is abused by city employees.

• No. 15 Streets - Levy Fee - 2 points
Suggestions:
o Levy fee based on a sliding scale based on size of business
o Consider private trash collection for businesses
o Impose the levy fee for commercial collection but revisit when times are better to eliminate it. (The city asks citizens and business to sacrifice during hard times but they don’t get a reprieve when times are good.)

Now Ways, No Hows:

• No. 11 Police - 52 points
Argument against:
o We need the police to keep the city safe.

• No. 5 Fire - 20 points
Argument against:
o Needed emergency services from the fire company, and it took 20 minutes to respond. (Person didn’t make it.)

• No. 4 Fairmount Park - 2 points
Argument against:
o Brings revenue from visitors. Also, it is such a small number, so why do it?

Shared Pain:
• No. 12 Prisons (5 percent) - 5 points
Supporting reasons:
o Lot of nonviolent offenders in the prison system who would benefit from alternative programs, e.g., drug/alcohol programs.

Argument against:
o Initial concern was the release of prisoners would increase crime in the city.

Other concerns:
o Want clarification on exactly who would be released from prison.
o Suggested near the end of the session to reduce the budget by 20 percent to keep from cutting the police budget.

• No. 22 Real Estate (35.05 mills) - 10 points
Supporting reasons:
- Member of group broke down the cost of increasing the tax to less than $9/month per taxpayer so group agreed they could live with that.

• No. 2 Courts - 10 points
Supporting reasons:
o The pace of trials is already too slow, which presents challenges when your loved ones are waiting for trial.
o Slow down an already ready slow process.

Other concerns:
o Alternative programs to address issues, e.g., Safe Surrender program would have to reduce stress on the courts.
o Investigate and address the conduct of judges, e.g., late starts, lunch breaks, special calls from defense attorneys to get preferential treatment for their cases leaving others waiting long times to have their cases heard.
o Reform prisons to become more efficient so that the courts are not stressed.

• No. 1 Administrative - Reduce budgets - 5 points
Supporting reasons:
o We are affected by jobs cuts too so they can cut some administrative jobs.
o People in those positions are generally over paid, if jobs need to get cut - start there.

• No. 1 Administrative - Increase Recording Fees - 1 point
Supporting reason:
o No substantive discussion on this issue.

• No. 9 Law - 2 points
Supporting reason:
o Initial discussion was that there are enough lawyers in the administration; loaded up on the city lawyers.
o Yielded no results so it was tabled.
o The group came back to it.

• No. 15 Streets - Reduce by 20 percent
Argument against:
• Potholes don’t get fixed now; if we cut this, it’ll be even worse.

• No. 24 Sales - 6 points
Supporting reasons:
o Other cities’ sales tax is more than ours.
o It’s only .1 percent increase.

• No. 10 L&I - 4 points
Supporting reasons:
o They sleep in their cars so they don’t work anyway.
o Worse functioning department in the city; everyone knows that.

Questions:
o Businesses/vendors - What’s the role of the Health Department?

• No. 16 Vehicle Fleet - 6 points
Questions:
o Are you taking away the captain’s car?
o Which vehicles are being taken away? Are they the take-home cars?
o Are cars part included of the union contract agreement?

Concern:
o Reduce maintenance cost.

Gut Wrenchers:
There were none. The group was unwilling to touch the items they put in the “No Way, No How” category. There was some discussion about looking at the Police cuts vs. the Prison cuts, but the overwhelming majority preferred to make the Prison cuts, which then reinforced their stance that the Police can’t afford any cuts.

Additional Notes:
The following sources were tabled after discussion in the group or that did not enough votes to make the list:

• No. 23 Real Estate Transfer (not enough votes)
o We have the highest transfer tax in the nation

• No. 6 Free Library (tabled)
o Place for the community, especially children, to have access to computers.
o Philadelphia Schools don’t have libraries in their buildings (comment from the fact that Philadelphia has more libraries per capita than any other city).
o Children need access to books.
o Children need a safe place they can go in their own neighborhoods - especially children from poor neighborhoods.

• No. 13 Public Health (tabled)
o Not all nursing homes are being utilized to capacity - may be empty beds in other facilities.
o Clarification from Jennifer - It impacts one city-owned facility, Riverside. (How can you access the other nursing homes that may have vacancies?)
o One person didn’t know what OTC meant.
o Need more information on the impact to the health centers because some people have no health insurance.

• No. 14 Recreation (not enough votes)
o Certain sections of the city need their centers as they house preschool, senior and arts programs.
o One gentleman who was in favor of cutting the budget here stated that parents (including working parents) need to take on the responsibility of spending more time with their children and coming up with creative ways to keep them occupied.
o In response, two women argued that as working parents, there is no time/way for them to do that. They’re working, and they need the recreation centers as resources (safe, productive environment to send their children).
o Suggest that colleges sponsor libraries and rec centers as a community service, e.g., Adopt-A-Rec Center (like Adopt-A-Highway program).

• No. 15 Streets - Reduce budget by 20% (not enough votes)

• No. 15 Streets - Levy “pay-as-you-throw” (not enough votes)
• Use bar code trash cans like they do in other communities.
• If we increase real estate tax then we don’t want to pay for trash.
• You will need to police your trash so that others don’t add to your trash increasing your bill.
• Increase in illegal dumping.