Council's tenure not longest anymore

At the end of 2010, the 17 members of Philadelphia City Council had been in office an average of 15.5 years, longer than their peers in 14 other big cities, as our February 2011 study showed. That will no longer be the case at the end of 2011, following municipal elections and other membership changes in Philadelphia and other cities. On Nov. 8, Philadelphia elected six new members to succeed long-serving Anna Verna, Joan Krajewski, Frank DiCicco, Jack Kelly, Frank Rizzo Jr. and Donna Reed Miller. That will bring the council's average tenure down to around nine years, more or less tied with Baltimore and Chicago, whose tenures also dropped since the end of 2010. The tenure ranking changes constantly due to elections or resignations in different cities at varying points, although Philadelphia's has consistently ranked near the longest. (Read some background at the Committee of Seventy). The 12 other councils that we studied were Boston, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, San Jose and Washington D.C. As we reported earlier, longevity in office can be positive, negative, or both for a city.

How 'rainy day' fund will work

Philadelphia's new Budget Stabilization Reserve approved by voters last week—the "rainy day fund"—will enable the city to put aside a small amount of money during flush years for use during bad times. How will the fund work? According to the legislation (PDF):

Deposits: The finance director must certify each year whether projected general-fund revenues for the upcoming fiscal year will exceed the city administration's projected appropriations by 3 percent or more. If not, there will be no deposits into the reserve. But if so, the administration must deposit 0.75 percent of the general-fund revenues into the reserve. The city can put the money into the same kind of low-risk investments as it does with the general fund, but must leave any investment gains in the reserve, and cannot mix it with any other city funds.

Withdrawals: To take money out of the reserve, the finance director first must certify that general-fund revenues in the preceding fiscal year had come in at least 1 percent below projections. The administration also must show that a withdrawal of money would be "necessary to avoid either a material disruption in city services, or to fund emergency programs necessary to protect the health, safety or welfare of city residents." Council must approve any withdrawal with a two-thirds majority vote.  

Sam Katz, chairman of the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, the state-run budget watchdog, has endorsed these rules (PDF). The process is expected to begin with the next fiscal year starting July 1, 2012. If revenue projections remain at the current level (PDF), there won't be enough growth to trigger a deposit next year.

Philly's poverty picture

Philadelphia's demographic story of the last decade wasn’t only its modest population growth. There also was a 3.8 percentage-point rise in its poverty rate, to 26.7 percent. This means about 407,400 Philadelphians live below the poverty line, as City Councilman Bill Green pointed out in a recent Inquirer interview, 60,000 more than a decade ago. Nationally, the poverty rate recorded the same 3.8-percentage-point rise. Now comes a new measure of poverty, the Census Bureau's Supplemental Poverty Measure, or SPM (PDF), believed in some quarters to be more accurate. This calculation has been made only at the national level so far. But its results may carry hints for Philadelphia. It indicates that fewer children and more seniors live in poverty than previously thought. The SPM poverty rate was 16 percent nationwide last year, compared with 15.1 percent under the traditional and still-official method. Learn more about the city's poverty trends in our 2011 State of the City report.

Do street cameras deter crime?

A three-city study (PDF) by the Urban Institute, a Washington-based think tank, provides some support for the idea that surveillance cameras can help reduce big-city crime. In two of the cities, Chicago and Baltimore, researchers found that the incidence of crime generally went down in areas with lots of cameras; that the financial benefits of surveillance outweighed the costs; and that there was little evidence that criminals simply shifted their activities to areas without cameras. But in the third city examined, Washington, the cameras had no measurable impact. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey is an advocate of the cameras, both public and private, saying they deter crime and help police identify perpetrators. The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Positive signs on Philly housing

Two new reports on housing markets contain good signs for Philadelphia and environs. A Brookings Institution researcher, using data from CoreLogic, looked at 38 metropolitan areas with more than 50,000 "underwater" mortgages and found that metropolitan Philadelphia was among the 10 regions with the lowest percentage of such loans. A mortgage is said to be underwater when the property value is less than the outstanding principal on the loan. Meanwhile, data on city home sales, compiled by City Controller Alan Butkovitz from TREND MLS (PDF), shows that total home sales in the city for the period July, August and September 2011 were up 12 percent from 2010 levels. That was a turn-around from the preceding six months, when sales were down 22 percent from a year earlier.

Survey on Occupiers and cities

The International City/County Management Association, which studies issues affecting localities, released a survey last week of local officials about "Occupy" protests in their midst. Among 87 cities responding, 62 percent reported a "collaborative" relationship with protesters, while 25 percent said relations "change from time to time" or were "neutral."  Philadelphia may be moving to latter category.

Philadelphia's Workforce Development Challenge: Our next report, due in the coming weeks, looks at the public system intended to help workers get jobs and employers find workers. Sign up here to receive an email alert about the release.

Closing Public Schools in Philadelphia, our October report, drew wide attention to the lessons of six other municipalities for the School District of Philadelphia, which is proposing to close nine schools and reconfigure some others.

Philadelphia 2011: The State of the City: Printed copies of our popular statistical round-up are available free of charge. To request a copy, e-mail pubs@pewtrusts.org with your name and address.

107,800
 

Number of Philadelphia adults who sought tax-funded career services in 2010-2011, as reported in our forthcoming Workforce Development report. Sign up here to receive a release alert.
 

Nov. 21: Police Advisory Commission meeting. Details here.

Nov. 22: Latest in a series of Fair Housing Commission meetings. Details here.

Dec. 9: Philadelphia Historical Commission monthly meeting. Details here.

Dec. 13: City Planning Commission monthly meeting. Details here.

Dec. 21: Board of Ethics meeting. Details here.

Dec. 21: School Reform Commission action meeting. Details here.

The Philadelphia Research Initiative provides timely, impartial research and analysis that help Philadelphia’s citizens and leaders understand key issues facing the city. See our Reports and Briefs page.

We also conduct regular opinion surveys of Philadelphians on key issues, using nonpartisan pollsters who adhere to the highest standards of opinion research. See our Polling page.

Check our News and Data Library for primary research documents and previous newsletters.

The Philadelphia Research Initiative is a project of the nonpartisan Pew Charitable Trusts. We welcome your comments.