PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia City Council has given preliminary approval to a $7.1 billion city budget with no new taxes — a blow to Mayor Cherelle Parker, who called it "a victory for billionaire tech companies."
City Council, sitting as the committee of the whole, approved a budget on Thursday just before its regular weekly meeting. Final approval is expected next week.
The vote followed weeks of negotiations on the mayor’s tax proposals, but none of them passed — not even a rideshare tax earmarked to help the School District of Philadelphia manage a structural deficit without cutting staff positions and programs.
Even after intense lobbying, Parker could not get the nine votes needed to pass the dollar-a-trip tax on Uber and Lyft. The rideshare companies had done their own lobbying, purporting that their customers are low-income residents who would suffer when they pass the tax along.
Parker said the companies should have absorbed the tax, given that they make money on Philadelphia streets from Philadelphians.
“Expecting them to contribute more is not unreasonable,” she said. "We just let billion-dollar tech companies play the City of Philadelphia and trick us into thinking that we were about to burden our constituents."
Council President Kenyatta Johnson disagreed with the mayor’s assessment that big tech companies won in the budget. He said members responded to constituents who don’t want new taxes. He said his members couldn’t support a new tax that would be passed along to riders.
“This is about individuals in Philadelphia who are dealing with an affordability crisis," he said.
The mayor had already given up taxes on deliveries and short-term rentals like Airbnb, but had hoped City Council could be persuaded that schools would face harmful cuts without a recurring source of revenue.
Council, instead, put a one-year $50 million contribution to the school district in the budget, which school advocates called a “Band-Aid.”
Superintendent Tony Watlington said he is grateful, but it won’t stop the cuts he’s planning because he faces a structural deficit."Every year beginning this coming school year, our costs will grow faster than our revenue stream. That’s why it’s so important to have the recurring revenue," he said.
Parker pledged to continue to fight for a new revenue stream for schools, including revisiting a rideshare tax.
