PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker brought her trademark passion to her first budget address to City Council on Thursday, outlining her plan to make good on campaign promises of a safer, cleaner, greener city with greater economic opportunity, and inviting elected officials and residents who packed Council chambers to share that vision.
“I’m calling it the ‘One Philly Budget,’” she said at the outset. “It’s big and it’s bold.”
In her 75-minute address, Parker proudly proclaimed she was funding her $6.29 billion dollar budget with no new taxes, even though the city faces lower than expected growth in some taxes and is losing federal COVID-19 relief money halfway through the fiscal year.
“I’ll make sure my administration is a responsible steward of the city’s finances,” she said.
The fiscal year 2025 operating budget contains $141 million in new spending to support what she called her “five pillars.”
– $36 million for Clean and Green Initiatives
– $33 million for Public Safety
– A $24 million increase in School District funding, including $22 million from increasing the share of real estate taxes that go to the District from 55% to 56%
– $19 million for Economic Opportunity programs
– $16 million for home ownership and repair programs.
Over five years, she said new investments, through the capital and operating budgets, would total $2 billion.
“It’s not just new money but the new approaches to how the city delivers services that I’m excited about,” she said. “The people of Philadelphia want to see their tax dollars at work in the neighborhoods. They want to see us do things differently.”
The mayor invited residents to hold her accountable to that pledge, repeating one line throughout the speech.
“Don’t simply listen to what I say, watch what we do.”
Advocates and Council members alike praised Parker’s address as hopeful and inspiring. Council members predicted a “robust” budget process, as they each seek to put their own stamp on the budget, but commended Parker for her big vision.
“This budget proposal puts forth a bold plan to address many of the longstanding issues that Philadelphians have faced for far too long,” Council’s majority leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson said.
The mayor called public safety her highest priority and said it had taken on new urgency after two shootings last week that killed or wounded a dozen high school students.
Her budget calls for a number of measures to bolster law enforcement and prevention programs. Among them:
– Hiring 400 new police officers a year, along with civilian personnel including 911 dispatchers, community outreach workers and victim advocates
– The purchase of 225 new vehicles as well as drones, cameras and video software
– $45 million from the capital budget for a new forensics lab
– More clean and seal teams in Licenses & Inspections for dangerous buildings
– Prison improvements including food and medial services
– $2.5 million for crime scene clean-up
– $24 million maintained for community-based anti-violence groups.
The mayor said she would promote community police and greater enforcement of nuisance crimes, such as ATVs illegally using city streets, and retail theft.
“Going in and stealing $499 worth of merchandise from our stores is not okay anymore,” she said.
She called Kensington’s addiction epidemic “an enormous public safety and public health challenge,” and promised to make it “a neighborhood of choice and beacon of pride again.”
Though she didn’t detail a specific plan to do so, there is money in the budget for triage centers, one measure that members of Council have advanced as a way to deliver better services.
Parker became emotional at one point, as she defended her stance on withholding city money for needle exchange programs.
“I’m not going to allow anyone to suggest that we do not care,” she said. “We care deeply. When it touches your immediate family like it did with me…” she paused, unable to finish the sentence.
The budget’s largest investment is in Clean and Green initiatives that include:
– Dedicated cleaning crews in each Council District for a faster response to complaints about trash and litter
– Expansion of the commercial corridor cleaning program PHL TCB (Taking Care of Business).
– Hiring 100 new sanitation workers and buying more than 60 trash compactors
– More illegal dumping crews
– More trash and recycling cans on city streets
– Planting 15,000 new trees
– A $117 million increase in Septa funding
– Doubling the current rate of street repaving.
She included some of these programs in her Economic Opportunity pillar as well, noting that city jobs provide steady employment and training for higher wage jobs. She also proposed:
– $1 million for the Accelerator Fund which provides access to capital for developers from historically disadvantaged groups
– $10 million to Community College to establish a first-in-the-nation City College for Municipal Employment
– $10 million for a workforce development and apprentice program in the Building Trades
– $14 million for a “PHL Open for Business” initiative to streamline steps to open or expand a business.
Parker called a sixth category of spending “Core Support” to recruit and retain city workers, including a call to retired workers to return to their jobs while still collecting their pensions.
In speeches following the address, Council gave Parker’s remarks rave reviews. Jaime Gauthier called the address “powerful.”
“Under the leadership of our new mayor and council president, I am optimistic that this budget will be one of the most equitable and impactful in our city’s more than 300-year history,” she said.
Republican Brian O’Neill predicted Council would be making changes to the mayor’s proposal only “around the edges.”
“She’s giving a lot of hope to people. She’s doing things I haven’t seen or heard at these (Council) meetings. The fact that it went so long, normally I’d be complaining but there was a whole lot in the message that is very positive for the city of Philadelphia,” O’Neill said.
Anti-violence advocate Bilal Qayyum also approved. “I thought it was an outstanding speech and knowing her, she’s going to make it happen,” he said.
School District Superintendent Tony Watlington applauded Parker in a statement, “for her diligence and dedication to our students when developing this budget that continues to support Philadelphia’s youth and will help us to become the fastest improving, large urban school district in the nation.”
Child advocate Donna Cooper was similarly complimentary.
“It was refreshing to have someone really challenge us to think about what the real normal should be,” she said, “where kids can go to sports programs and not have to beg on the streets for money for them, where we have clean communities because that’s a real issue, that sends a message to kids.”
Cooper was disappointed the city’s investment in pre-K was not increased in the mayor’s proposal, but she said she’d work on that with Council.
“The mayor set a good foundation and her ambition around year-round school, these are the kinds of sentiment and ambition we need to move the kids forward and to move the city forward.”