Aye. The ayes are 17, the nays are 0. A majority of all Members having voted in the affirmative, the bill passes. Councilman Mariano, you wanted to be recognized.
Thank you, Madam President. I had to leave the room. I missed some votes. I want to be recorded as voting yes on the bills.
The record will so reflect that. (Councilman Mariano recorded as voting aye on Bills No. 040029, 040030, 040066, 040031.) That concludes our Calendar for today. The time has come for us to consider the Mayor's presentation of his annual budget message. The Philadelphia Home Rule Charter states that the Mayor shall submit to Council no later than 90 days before the end of the Fiscal Year his Operating Budget message and propose Operating Budget ordinance for the ensuing Fiscal Year. At the same time, the Mayor shall submit to Council the recommended Capital Budget as received from the City Planning Commission to the extent approved by the Mayor. I now appoint the following Committee to escort the Mayor into the Council Chambers: Councilwoman Blackwell, Councilwoman Tasco, Councilman O'Neill, and Councilman Rizzo. Please proceed. (The Committee proceeds.)
Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to introduce the Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, John F. Street. (Applause.)
Mr. Mayor, before we start your message, I think we have photographers that are on the floor of Council. Perhaps we can give them a minute or two to take their photos. And then please move to the side, because I'm sure that the Mayor would find it very distracting.
Thank you very much, Good morning to everyone. (Good morning.)
Before I start my prepared remarks -- and at age 60 you'll be glad to know that I have prepared remarks -- I would like to question whether or not those remarks have been distributed to the Members of Council?
I do not have copies. I think they're just arriving.
Before I start those remarks, I'd like to thank at least a few of the members of my Administration who worked very, very hard to create the spending plan that I offer to you today. First of all, I'd like to thank Joyce Wilkerson, our Chief of Staff; Janice Davis, our Finance Director; Rob DuBow; Phil Goldsmith; Maxine Griffith; and a number of other folks who really spent an awful lot of time, including commissioners and others, to try to fashion a program, a spending program for this City that best interest. And these folks have worked very, very hard, and I want to publicly thank them as well as others who are too numerous to mention. 4 billion FY '05 General Fund Operating Budget and my proposed Capital Program and Budget for FY '05 through '10, along with my proposed Five Year Financial Plan for FY '05 through '09. 6 million in wage and business tax reductions. Notwithstanding our rapidly declining capital borrowing limits, the proposed Capital Program makes effective use of our limited resources and reasonably provides for the maintenance of the City's existing facilities. This Budget and Five Year Plan are offered during a time of great national and state economic distress. State and federal revenues in support of social and other services have been reduced; the national compromise local tax revenues; and there is an escalating demand for services by Philadelphians who themselves are financially pressed by the loss of benefits, rapidly escalating utility costs, unemployment, and other increased living expenses. Although our City has heretofore avoided the service cuts and tax increases common to other jurisdictions, increasing healthcare, criminal justice and pension costs are challenging our financial capacity. This spending plan delicately balances the need to deliver high-quality core City services while simultaneously investing to promote a bright future for our City in the 21st Century. Philadelphia is a City of proud neighborhoods, and we will never default on our commitment to regular people who live in them. Our highly acclaimed Safe Streets Program, our Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, and after school programs are protected in this budget. Abandoned car removal, vacant lot cleaning, snow removal, have improved the quality of life in our neighborhoods and are also funded. Over 23,000 positions are funded in the various City agencies and departments which will allow us to maintain our core City services at or above current levels. However, the need to close a projected $227-million FY '05 budget gap, projected to grow to $670 million by FY '09, will require some significant changes in our service delivery goals and practices. Proposed funding for many traditional services, programs, and facilities has been reduced. Among other things, this financial plan dramatically reduces or fleet, further reduces cell phone usage, curtails employee parking privileges, and continues to reduce the number of City employees. We will dispose of excess property, consolidate services where appropriate, and work with our unions to lower the cost of delivering others. We will, however, work to avoid layoffs. Nothing is worst than losing one's employment in difficult economic times. our commitment to public education. Our students and families are beginning to see new materials, better prepared teachers, and support for struggling students that has been too long coming. However, notwithstanding recent progress, too many Philadelphia public schools are far from the models of educational excellence appropriate to a world class 21st Century City. This budget should not be viewed as a barrier to progress and prosperity or a source of pessimism and frustration.
It allows us to make some powerful economic investments that will help grow our population, create new economic opportunities, and build the new Philadelphia. We will secure our future by turning our attention to job creation, waterfront development, and tax reform. We are off to a pretty impressive start. The proposed office towers for Comcast and Towers Perrin, along with the Cira Centre, will be remarkable additions to our skyline. Those developments, along with the renovations ACE, INA is planning at 436 Walnut Street, signal that Philadelphia is a great place with a strong future. This development, in addition to the major retail complexes being developed around the City anchored by Lowes, Home Depot, and Ikea, along with the new exiting construction and renovations planned by the School District of Philadelphia, represents several billion dollars of construction over the next several years. That construction will be accompanied by the welcome sight of construction cranes looming large on our skyline, unmistakable symbols of jobs, growth, and economic prosperity. This development will produce thousands of employment opportunities for people who live in our neighborhoods and our region. Our future will be distinguished by the presence of corporate leaders like many Comcast, GlaxoSmithKline, CIGNA, ACE, INA Sunoco, and other businesses, large and small, over the last two years to remain in Philadelphia. That future will be promoted by the growing research and development capabilities of our 83 area colleges and universities. These universities and colleges have an impressive annual enrollment in excess of 300,000 students, many of whom we hope to keep in our region as residents. This dynamic future will be propelled by the creation of $500 million Economic Development Investment Fund, which I propose be funded over the next four years. This spending plan proposes to restructure the Water Department debt service reserve to make the first $125 million available before the end of the calendar year. It is important to note that these dollars cannot be used to address our Operating Budget deficit. The Investment Fund will underwrite an unprecedented investment in the 15 miles of magnificent waterfront all along the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers waiting to developed into spectacular 21st Century mixed-use communities, communities that can become the home to thousands of new Philadelphians who will be magnets for new economy and knowledge industry jobs. That investment will establish Philadelphia as the New River City in America. Complementing the waterfront plan will be the new strategic plan for the City's other great untapped resource, Fairmount Park. Together, they will give Philadelphia a combination of water and park resources available for residential, commercial and recreational activities unparalleled perhaps in the world. When combined with the NTI initiatives, these new centers of economic activity will be the lynchpin to reversing the trend of job and population loss in our City. To help prepare for my second term, I invited more than 100 distinguished men and women from this region to participate in the Philadelphia 21st Century Review Forum charged with making recommendations to guide our second term activity. " You lot more about its recommendations in the coming weeks, particularly the work of the Ethics Committee which was led by Judge Ida Chen. This budget supports an increase of $550,000 for the Inspector General's Office in '05 as a part of our commitment to higher ethics and standards of accountability. Based on the work of the Regional Cooperation Committee chaired by Nick DiBenedictis, the CEO of Aqua America, I am convinced that a critical part of our pro-growth agenda requires the promotion of our City and region.
To do this, the City should partner with the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce in its campaign to market Philadelphia and its region as a business destination. I propose that the City contribute $250,000 in each of the next four years to support the Chamber's Select Greater Philadelphia Campaign. As we work to perfect our vision of a world class 21st Century Philadelphia, we must diminish the negative influence our overall tax burden has on families and become more economically competitive. 7 million is budgeted to increase our local tax collection efforts; The Five Year Plan adopts the transition to a land value tax to be phased in 10-year period beginning in FY '06; Beginning July 1, 2004, we will initiate the single factor apportionment business privilege tax formula, which removes a major disincentive for businesses that want to locate or expand in the City. These initiatives will make our tax structure fairer and friendlier to residents, taxpayers, employers and employees alike. A very special thanks to the Tax Commission for its stellar work in producing a blueprint to tax reform in our City. Neighborhood revitalization, waterfront development, and tax reform represent exciting, important and necessary investments to secure our future. However, we must protect the core services our citizens have a right to expect even in a tough budget year. We will not reduce our financial commitment to public safety. Some forms of violence are still out of control, particularly against women and children. People must be safe. We are committed to officers on the street and making the very best use of our public safety dollars. Philadelphia has become a safer city and we will not compromise public safety. But let me hasten to add that the proliferation of handguns in our City is unacceptable. I commend City Council for its recent attempts to impose reasonable limits on the availability of handguns which account for over 80 percent of the homicides in our City. We must, however, acknowledge that the ultimate legislative power to impose responsible gun control is the duty of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania General Assembly and the Congress of these United States. Beyond protecting core services and public safety, there are several important priorities established in this budget. We keep our commitment to diversity and inclusion. In response to the unanimous concern articulated by City Council last year, we propose investing $700,000 into the Minority Enterprise Council to better manage its functions, including firm registration, certification, award tracking, and compliance. We have empowered the City's Contract Review Committee to examine DBE participation in every City contract and propose to contribute $1 million to underwrite the emerging contractors program developed by the African American Chamber of Commerce with our Commerce Department and Housing Departments. This budget proposes to invest $250,000 to support a prisoner re-entry program administered by the Philadelphia Prison System. The men and women and children in the care and custody of our penal system must be provided a better opportunity to become reintegrated with their families and into our neighborhoods. The City also proposes to provide unprecedented support to the victims of domestic violence. In FY '05, funding in the amount of $1,065,000 is proposed to expand the number of shelter beds for battered women and their children and to enhance technology and staffing for a city-wide Domestic Violence Hotline. summer, we launched Global Philadelphia to increase language access, including the translation of vital documents and the deployment of interpreters. We propose to spend $500,000 to support this effort in FY '05.
We also propose to continue the City's commitment to technology. Within 60 days, users will be able to pay bills and fees by credit card online. And before June 15th, the City will establish Love Park as a free wireless hot spot, consistent with our recognition of the increasing importance of technology to a vibrant 21st Century urban environment. Although our direct support for art and culture in this budget is reduced, including funding to the Art Museum, the Atwater Kent Museum, the African American Museum, the cultural and recreational fund and others, we intend to work in partnership with the leaders in the business, arts and cultural community to approach our local foundations and others to help fill the gap. Committee of the 21st Century Review Forum evaluated the number of facilities providing services to citizens to determine whether or not the number was commensurate with our population density and financial capacity, and concluded that library materials and staff are thinly spread across too many facilities, small recreation facilities that are lightly used lay only blocks from larger more complete facilities. Benchmark studies, whether by the square mile, per capita, or raw numbers, show that Philadelphia operates significantly more pools, libraries, and recreation facilities than other similar-sized cities. Although blind adherence to such comparisons is inappropriate, this and the work of the Managing Director have persuaded me that we must objectively review this issue. We never want to find ourselves in the position of our sister city, Pittsburgh, which was forced to close all of its pools and recreation centers. Over the next several weeks, we must on many service-related issues, including the number and location of recreation facilities and pools we should maintain, transfer or merge. We must confront service delivery issues raised in our Police and Fire Departments as well as the level and service appropriate to our branch, regional, and main libraries. But even after we have completed the task before us, fundamental inefficiencies will remain because of the limitations imposed upon us by the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter, a Charter that is over 50 years old. President Adamany's Committee spoke to this issue by saying, "The 1951 Home Rule Charter was, above all else, a reform document intended to break clearly with the past. " Any thoughtful independent review of the Charter will conclude that it precludes the use of proven management tools that could facilitate important cost savings. Charter reform is worthy of a Charter Commission and priority. I propose to work with a small group of Councilmembers and civic leaders to establish a sharply focused mandate for a new Charter Reform Commission which could address the Charter-related structural problems that make permanent reform difficult to achieve. This year, we must negotiate new labor contracts with District Councils 47 and 33, as well as our police union. This budget contains no funds to absorb any wage increases that are sure to result from these negotiations. City employees should not be asked to assume greater responsibility without an increase in compensation over the life of a new contract. But to achieve that objective, everyone must sacrifice to produce budget savings necessary to fund a fair contract, including the courts and other independently elected officials. The Budget and Five Year Plan before you today are delicately balanced. It will not be easy. But I am optimistic about the recommendations we have made. administers some harsh but effective medicine. And despite the potential political pain, it compels us to make fundamental changes that are long over due.
It also allows us to make some vital investments that have an extraordinary upside potential for every neighborhood and every person in our City. Incredibly, the fiscal crisis that confronts us and the solutions proposed create a win for the budget and a win for our future. All we have to do is make the right decisions. Let us lead this City to embrace those changes and give the prescription laid out in this budget a chance to work. We must insist on the framework of this budget, but the detail is not carved in stone. We are willing to listen and compromise. But we cannot avoid or circumvent the challenges before us. Succumbing to the inevitable inclination to avoid taking decisive action would be a grave miscalculation. The time to act responsibly to now. And if not now, when? Thank you. )
Are there any speeches on the part of the Minority? (No response.)
Are there any speeches on the part of the Majority? (No response.)
Seeing none, the Chair recognizes Councilwoman Tasco for a motion to adjourn.
Madam President, I move that Council stand adjourned until Thursday, March 25th, 2004 at 10:00 a.m.
It has been moved and seconded that Council stand adjourned until Thursday, March 25, 2004. All in favor will say aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it, and the motion carries. Thank you. (Council adjourned at 11:40 a.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of March 18, 2004, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. RE: STATED MEETING _________________________ Lisa C. Bradley, RPR