Title
September 17, 2009
TO THE PRESIDENT AND MEMBERS OF THE
COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA:
I am returning herewith to your honorable body, without my signature, Bill No. 090292, which was passed by Council at its session on June 11, 2009.
First, I want to state that I understand the policy issue the bill is seeking to address and I agree with the goal. In fact, in a letter dated June 4, 2009 which I sent to Councilwoman Sanchez, the sponsor of this measure, I commended her for her leadership on this measure and stated that I supported her efforts to "protect worker's rights by ensuring prevailing and livable wages." And, I pledged to work with Councilwoman Sanchez and the various stakeholders to "craft an amenable solution" while pointing out the need to better understand the potential citywide fiscal implications of the bill.
This bill emanated out of a situation occurring as a result of the need to achieve budget efficiencies due to the very serious and significant fiscal crisis facing the City. One of the many steps the City implemented to reduce costs, was authorizing certain emergency housing providers under contract to the City to individually solicit security services with the agreement that the level of security would be maintained. The providers then entered into direct agreements for security services that were at rates lower than the city-wide security contract that had been providing security at these emergency housing facilities, thus unfortunately, resulting in lowered wages for some of the security guards at some of these facilities.
Once again, I committed to Councilwoman Sanchez that I would work with her to resolve this situation. Clearly, any solution would have cost implications and I indicated that once a State budget and the legislation we needed from the State to balance our budget and financial plan were enacted, the City would be in a better position to craft a remedy. Unfortunately, the fiscal unce...
Click here for full text