Philadelphia in Peril

December 1st, 2008

Mayor Nutter gave a speech on November 6th 2008. To summarize this speech, it was about Philadelphia in general but the important part here is the budget of the city. We started the year in a $119 million surplus and are now in a deficit of $108 million, he has given salary cuts to everyone including himself, and he is cutting the bugets, “In facing this crisis, I have rejected across-the-board cuts because of their inherent unfairness” Nutter is doing some pruning, finding the programs that work and keeping their buget the same, and finding other places to make cuts:

“Last winter, we began a total review of all programs and spending, measuring everything against the yardstick of our core values: public safety, healthy neighborhoods, sustainable economic growth and improved education all delivered by a more efficient government with the highest ethical standards.

…

Our goal is to:
Preserve programs that work,
Adjust these programs to actual needs,
Find real efficiencies that can be implemented quickly,
Collect money owed to the city,
Rebalance fees for some city services to better cover our costs and
Share the burden of sacrifice that spending cuts require.

I believe that sharing the burden must begin with our schedule of business and wage tax cuts. After more than a decade of annual cuts, it would be folly to continue cutting in this dangerous fiscal environment.”

Now to take from this is that he says we must “share the burden” and I totally 100% agree, my friend Dave Speers has this awesome idea posted on ideablob.com and I for one would love to see it actually happen.

So the whole point of this post is to make you and everyone else reading aware of this situation in Philadelphia and all I am asking you to do about it is spare a vote for this idea on idea blob, thank you.

Entry Filed under: Events, Happenings, Hopes, Thoughts