City Council bill would change wasteful city spending, capture savings

Posted 10/12/16

by Jay A. McCalla

Please allow me, for the moment, to compare parenting to governing. They have the common element of being responsible for the welfare of others with a commitment to plan, …

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City Council bill would change wasteful city spending, capture savings

Posted

by Jay A. McCalla

Please allow me, for the moment, to compare parenting to governing. They have the common element of being responsible for the welfare of others with a commitment to plan, protect and provide.

I warmly recall my parents never merely putting me to bed. Always, one or the other would look in on me to see if I was sleeping peacefully. My dad didn't just accompany me to sign up for Little League Baseball. He also came to my practices and games to judge how I was progressing and provide support. The habit of “checking in” was ingrained long into college when my folks would write letters (this is before Internet) just to see how I was coming along.

To my eyes, parenting was not simply about doing good and interesting things; it was a critically involved, continual effort to assess how things are going. This is where deep dissimilarities appear in my comparison between parenting and governing.

Immediately, the Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) comes to mind. Created by Mayor Rendell ostensibly to exploit a booming stock market, the plan was to use our new prosperity to “incentivize” senior (expensive) employees to retire early and create management succession plans so they could be replaced by less expensive folks. It was sold as a way to reduce our costs.

I doubt tethering a long-term fiscal strategy to something as changeable as the stock market was ever a good idea, and the ability of government managers to create and manage hundreds of mini-succession plans could reasonably be ridiculed.

It is hugely problematic that, long after DROP has proven to be a categorical disaster (raising pension costs by $250 million over the last decade), there are zero plans to amend or end it. Not even our $5.7 billion pension fund deficit is causing reflection.

I also think of our venerated policy of providing tax incentives for businesses to expand and create new jobs. Between 2010 and 2012, our politicians extended over $100 million in tax breaks – lost revenue – to businesses. We have no idea if those expensive subsidies produced even one job. Nobody follows up.

There is, however, reason to be encouraged. Bill #160868, introduced this month at City Council, creates a Criminal Justice Reinvestment Fund that would reinvest savings from a reduced prison population into criminal justice reform programs.

The idea seems simple enough, but it will force lots of positive behavior and synergy of goals in an institution characterized by pandering, unoriginality of thought and little regard for the future.

Mayors just love to announce any new, cost-saving measures because they make great press releases. But, this bill requires that “savings” be specifically quantified, accounted for and captured for recycling. Smart stuff.

Adding further pressure for precise accounting and expeditious recycling is the presence of advocates for criminal justice reform. As the end users of any savings, they can be counted on to keep squeezing for the reduction of our prison population and a true accounting of gleanings.

The capture and recycling of savings won't lower our tax burden but will reduce upward pressure on taxation levels in the future.

Those who govern us missed many opportunities to establish “parenting skills.” In 2000, we abolished the 300-year-old office of the Clerk of Quarter Sessions – quirky little shop not known for procedural hygiene. The millions in savings were neither captured nor recycled.

The Department of Public Property once maintained a fleet of big, black sedans and chauffeurs for the convenience of certain officials (seriously). That practice ending during the Rendell Administration, but again, savings were neither captured nor recycled.

Some civic observers would like to abolish the Office of City Commissioners. Suppose we did. The savings could be captured and recycled into a state of the art network of voting machines that is fast, reliable and secure.

Imagine funding new priorities without inventing new taxes e.g. soda and cigarettes.

If the council members who sponsored this bill are successful, it will appear on the November ballot in 2017 for public approval. Fortunately, in this case, ballot initiatives tend to gain assent. So, it looks like this very bright scheme will get a chance to strut its stuff and walk our government towards smarter, cheaper path.

Jay A. McCalla is a former Deputy Managing Director under mayors Rendell and Street. Follow him on Twitter @jayamccalla1.

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