Photo credit: Philadelphia City Council Office of Communications
After days of round-the-clock meetings, the Parker Administration and Philadelphia City Council have reached an agreement that gives Mayor Cherelle Parker a big win…and Council some oversight.
By Denise Clay-Murray
On Thursday, after days of negotiations, meeting recesses, long nights of hurry up and wait, Philadelphia City Council passed a preliminary 2026 fiscal year budget.
The $6.8 billion plan adds about $98 million to the $6.7 billion plan that Mayor Cherelle Parker proposed to Council in March, reflecting some of the priorities that Councilmembers outlined during six weeks of budget hearings, Council President Kenyatta Johnson said.
But the highlight of the plan is the $800 million bond issue connected to Mayor Parker’s Housing Opportunities Made Easy (H.O.M.E) initiative. Parker’s plan to expand the city’s housing stock by 30,000 units with an eye toward solving the city’s housing crisis.
Like many of the expenditures in the budget, it reflects Council’s priorities, Johnson said.
“It just reflects the priorities of members of City Council as we focus on providing quality services for the constituencies that we actually represent,” he said. “And so, the focus for me is just making sure that we’re working in partnership with the administration regarding the H.O.M.E program. For me, that’s a great accomplishment.”
But it wasn’t a given. Council’s Committee of the Whole, Finance and Rules Committees were supposed to consider the budget in general and H.O.M.E legislation in particular on Monday. But instead of voting the bills out of committee so they could be considered during the time that Council regularly has its stated meetings, the committees were put into recess as negotiations between Council and the Parker Administration over the H.O.M.E initiative and the oversight the legislative body wanted over it continued.
Council got the oversight it wanted in the form of a four-person panel that will be comprised of selections from Council and the mayor.
“I want to thank Council President Kenyatta Johnson and all Members of City Council for their collaboration on this Budget for the people of Philadelphia,” Mayor Parker said in a statement. I cannot succeed without my partnership with Council President Johnson. I am grateful and thank him for it. At a time of real uncertainty in our country, this budget makes substantial, bold investments in the programs we need most to make Philadelphia the safest, cleanest and greenest big city in America, with access to economic opportunity for all.”
In addition to the H.O.M.E. program, Mayor Parker’s taxation priorities took center stage as the School District of Philadelphia got an additional million in property tax instead of the two million activists requested, modest cuts were made in the Wage Tax, and the $100,000 small business exemption for small businesses on the Business, Income and Receipts Tax was done away with.
Activists calling on the City not to get rid of the exemption did so because they felt it would kill small businesses. Johnson said Council has placed guardrails to keep that from happening in the budget.
“We put 30 plus million dollars to the side for the Department of Commerce to support small businesses who may be impacted by the tax exemption through the Jump Start program,” Johnson said. “So, that’s a step in the right direction.”
Other programs funded with the $98 million additional dollars coming from the Council budget include more money for capital repairs to schools, parks and other recreational areas, and money to create the Office of Prison Oversight. This office was created through a referendum passed during the May 20 primary.
But while the Mayor, the Council President and much of Council has made peace with the budget, not everyone was happy with it. In a statement issued after the vote, Council Minority Leader Kendra Brooks and Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke said the plan showed contempt to Philadelphia’s most vulnerable.
Decrying what they called a “closed door process”, Brooks and O’Rourke believe that the budget ignored what the public wanted.
“Despite participation from thousands of community members leading into negotiations, the final budget was decided without meaningful input from the whole of council,” according to the statement. “The communities we represent were shut out of the process and denied genuine influence on the direction of our city. This process led to a budget that fails to address critical needs in our communities and ignores the dire consequences of federal cuts. There’s no wage tax refund, for people who are making poverty wages – which was part of our tax plan. And there’s no new money for the School District, for our city’s public-school students.”
While O’Rourke wasn’t present for the preliminary budget vote, Brooks voted no on the plan.
Council is expected to approve the budget and all of its accompanying bills at its final meeting before heading into summer break on Thursday. It will go into effect on July 1, the beginning of the 2026 Fiscal Year.
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