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November 18, 2004
TO THE PRESIDENT AND MEMBERS OF THE
COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA:
I am returning herewith as unsigned Bill Nos. 040785 and 040786, passed by the Council on October 28, 2004. These bills amend the City’s FY05 Capital Budget and FY05-FY10 Capital Program to add $7 million in the FY05 Capital Budget for the Recreational Facilities improvement allocation that is allocated to District City Council members.
Between FY99, when District Council members first received an allocation of $1.2 million of Capital Budget funding each, and FY04, the City’s Capital Budget declined by more than a third. The Capital Budget has been shrinking consistently since the mid-1990s because of the City’s dwindling legal debt capacity under state law, as well as our increasing overall debt burden, yet City Council was not asked to share in that reduction until the FY05 Capital Budget. The City Planning Commission estimates that a city of Philadelphia’s size, age and population requires double the amount of the current capital program to address our physical infrastructure needs. Fewer and fewer of these needs are being addressed, while City Council’s capital allocation has remained constant. As a result, Council’s share of this shrinking pie has increased from 9 percent of capital dollars in FY99 to 15 percent of capital dollars in FY04.
Over this same time period, the annual allocation for road resurfacing in the Streets Department’s allocation has dropped from $14 million to $11 million. This is half of what the Streets Department estimates is required to maintain over 90 percent of our roads in very good or good condition, yet we are providing more money to District Council members to save for Recreational Facilities projects than we are to maintain city streets. The City’s annual Citizen Survey of 1,100 residents has identified street repair as one of the top five most important services that the City provides, cited more often than fire protection in all but one year. In contrast, Recreational Facilities ranked fourteenth. The Citizen Survey also tells us that our residents want more and better street repair, as this is annually one of the lowest-rated services that we provide. These Bills would continue to provide more of our scarce capital funding for Recreational Facility repair than for resurfacing and reconstruction, which is seen by our residents as more important and more in need of investment. This is a flawed approach that is not responsive to the needs of our citizens and businesses.
The Administration transmitted to City Council an FY05 Capital Budget that judiciously allocated our dwindling debt capacity among the City’s key needs, and for the first time, District Council members were asked to live within the same limitations as all other City departments in meeting the challenge of our shrinking Capital Budget and dwindling debt capacity. City Council has voted twice to completely restore its funding for Recreational Facilities and declined to share in the responsibility of all other departments. Bill Nos. 040785 and 040786 would authorize the City to spend $7 million more on Recreational Facilities, at an ultimate cost of $12 million in additional debt service, when District City Council members already have $20 million of unspent funds available. Not only would these Bills take away scarce debt capacity from other unfunded projects, and add debt service costs to the City’s future budgets, they would also contradict our current efforts to right-size and realign recreation facilities and services throughout the City. By eliminating older or under-utilized buildings that have repair needs, and shifting responsibility for other buildings away from the City through leases to private parties, City Council’s need for capital dollars should decrease.
For all of the above reasons, I can not sign Bills Nos. 040785 and 040786, and therefore am returning them without my signature.
Respectfully submitted,
John F. Street
Mayor
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