Communities challenge budget cuts

Mayor Michael Nutter is preparing to balance his budget through draconian cuts in services, pensions, grants and jobs in Philadelphia at the expense of the city’s most vulnerable population.

Dec. 6 rally at the Central Branch Library in Philadephia. WW photo: Joe Piette

In November, Nutter announced plans to whittle down a potential five-year, $1 billion deficit. The first round of cuts includes limits to trash collection and snow plowing; closing of fire stations; elimination of residential street cleaning; and closing 68 of 81 city swimming pools. The cuts include reducing in half the city’s promised $4 million to Philadelphia Community College.

A $4.6 million cut to the Department of Human Services will cause the city to lose $18 million in state matching funds, leaving a $23 million gap in human services in a city that uses $22 million from the nondiscretionary portion of its budget to pay for the incarceration of youth.

The Byron Story Youth Restoration Center in predominantly African-American North Philadelphia is faced with closing its doors on Jan. 1. While the center is supported by local organizations, its primary source of funding comes from DHS. The center provides youth with education, social skills and anti-violence alternatives. A total of 525 people have earned their GED because of the center.

A number of these students spoke out at a public meeting and explained that without the center it was unlikely they would have achieved their goals. Students, parents, teachers and neighbors marched from the center to City Hall. With very little time to mobilize before the January deadline, they have started petitions and outreach strategies along with a planned presence at future DHS and City Council meetings.

Others are fighting Nutter’s unprecedented proposal to close 11 of the city’s 54 branch libraries and sell the buildings. Nine of the 11 are in areas where 40 percent of the children live below the poverty line. Most are in communities of color.

With fewer than 50 percent of Philadelphia schools offering on-site library services, the community libraries provide the only source of free books, as well as after-school havens with continued learning programs and resources for youth. They are also home to senior activities and book clubs, and are used by nearby preschools. With an estimated half of the city population having no home computers, many people rely on their local branches to do research or look for jobs.

Siobhan Reardon, the head of the Philadelphia Free Library System, claims that patrons will receive these services elsewhere, but people aren’t buying it. A proposal by the Friends of the Library to keep these branches open three days a week was rejected.

Numerous rallies at the branches, each building on the momentum of the last, pressured the City Council into passing a nonbinding resolution to delay the January closings to allow further analysis. Mayor Nutter was also pressured into holding eight town hall meetings where angry protesters challenged city officials.

On Dec. 6, over 300 people gathered for a rally at the Central Branch Library, where one woman in the crowd asked if oil had been discovered under the libraries. Others questioned government’s priorities to bail out banks, spend $341.5 million each day in Iraq and give huge tax breaks to the city’s wealthiest corporations while foreclosing on homes and trying to take away vital services.

A leaflet from the Philadelphia Bail Out the People Campaign challenged the city’s tax policies that allow corporations and wealthy citizens to pay little or no property taxes. It noted that nearly $80 million in revenue could be provided annually by overturning a tax-abatement program that gives 8,000 owners of million-dollar condominiums up to 90 percent savings on their tax bills for 10 years.