City Council deliberates on the Mayor's proposed budget every year in a tedious, but important, hearing process that stretches out over two months. This year's hearings begin on Tuesday, February 26 with a look at the proposed Five Year Plan. On Wednesday, Council will take up the tax bills that have been introduced, including the proposed changes in the BPT and the wage tax. The following week there will be a hearing on the capital budget. After that, each week for the following six weeks (with a one week break) all the City Departments will appear, one after the other, to make their cases for whatever it is that the Mayor wants for these Departments. The last of the scheduled hearings is to take place April 15. Two weeks later it will be the turn of the School District, whose leaders will testify on April 28 and 29.

The problem with this process is that the voice of the public is effectively shut out. The public is allowed to testify only on two days after every single Administration and School District witness is finished. This year another day has been added, for the public to testify on the proposed tax bills. But still, Council will have been hearing witnesses for 6 weeks on the spending side of the budget before it gets to hear a word from the public on how the City's funds should be appropriated.

One Philadelphia, a network of advocacy groups, thinks it is time for this process to be opened up for real community input. On behalf of 17 organizations, it wrote Council President Verna yesterday asking her to make the budget hearings constituent-friendly. The result of the current process, it said, is that

residents have often given their input without first being present to hear what department heads have said, and without hearing the questions that Council members have posed to them. Thus, due to no fault of their own, witnesses have had a hard time being responsive to specific issues of concern to Council members. Furthermore, witness testimony has often been given so late in the process that it is too late to ask Department heads to return for the purpose of responding to issues that those witnesses raise.

Hopefully the Council President will respond positively to this proposal, along with One Philly's other suggestion that some of the hearings take place on evenings and in neighborhoods. If you would like to provide input on Council's budget deliberations regarding one or more particular departments such as Police, Fire, Streets, Human Services or anything else, and don't want to wait until April 16 to do so, let the Council President, or your Councilperson know that you agree with One Philadelphia.