Evidently transparency only goes so far in the Nutter administration.

It was widely reported that the budget plan adopted by Council retained the Cohen Wage Tax Rebate but delays implementation of the program for another year until 2014.

Now it is itself is a bit of a farce to delay the beginning of the program until after the next election for Mayor or Council. Michael Nutter wouldn’t claim to be serving the interests of the business community by promising a big BPT cut in 2014 but doing nothing now.

But now it seems that this farce is the least of our problems.

Stan Shapiro recently sent an email that said

It turns out that the Cohen rebate has actually been stunted, not just postponed. Under the law as it is now, the rate for low wage workers would go down to 1.5% no matter what, in yearly half percent increments starting in 2012.

Under the amendment approved on Wednesday, low wage workers would get a half percent cut in 2013 from the regular 2013 rate and a one percent cut from the regular 2013 rate in 2014. That would be it. So the maximum differential between low wage workers and everyone else would be 1%. It could be less. If the regular rate goes down in 2014, the final differential would be less because the low wage workers would be getting 1% less than the 2013 rate, not the 2014 rate

No one in the administration or Council bothered to tell the advocates of the Cohen Wage Tax that this change was made. It was buried in an obscure corner of the legislation.

This legerdemain, coming on top of Nutter’s violation of the spirit if not the letter of the open meetings law makes one wonder whether there is a new day dawning in Philadelphia for everyone or just for those who, dare we say it, are politically connected. And I’m not sure if the city is improved if the people as a whole are better off if the politically connected are businessmen as opposed to ward leaders.