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Good morning Council President Darrell Clarke, Council leadership, members of the City Council and my fellow Philadelphians.
In the last five years, together, we have weathered crises, managed through hard times and set a foundation for a stronger, more diverse and prosperous City. And a growing Philadelphia, 9,000 new citizens, according to the latest Census Bureau report.
Today, I want to talk about our future, not our past.
But through it all, we have depended on the resilience of our great citizens and on the dedication and hard-work of our public employees: like John Elfrey, Deputy Managing Director for the Office of Transportation and Public Utilities.
John Elfrey is the 2013 recipient of the Richardson Dilworth Award for Distinguished Public Service. A true professional, John has spent almost three decades serving the City of Philadelphia. Please recognize John, who represents the many City employees committed to good government and excellent service.
Before I go any further, I know many of you here today are City employees with serious concerns. I have nothing but the deepest respect for the thousands of public employees who work on behalf of 1.5 million Philadelphians.
You want a fair contract and so do I. But a fair contract must balance the interests of both hard working taxpayers and dedicated City employees.
Investing in public employees requires reasonable pay increases and health care benefits, but we must also have work rule changes including overtime reform and the authority to better manage our workforce with an alternative to just layoffs - not working for one day and coming back is better than not working at all.
We must also address the budget reality of a City Pension Fund that is only half funded and is taking more and more public resources that could be spent on citizen services or tax relief.
The pension changes we have proposed in contract negotiations will help preserve the health of the fund for the s...
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