As we approach the third week of hearings for the FY 2025 budget, the phrase “My dog ate my homework” hasn’t been used yet. But it could be.
By Denise Clay-Murray
Hopefully, everyone in Philadelphia has been spending time watching the hearings on the 2025 fiscal year budget.
On Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, department after department has been coming before City Council’s Committee of the Whole to justify their budget requests.
The $6.4 billion plan put forth by Mayor Cherelle Parker has a lot of things in it that Philadelphians made it abundantly clear that they wanted when she was on the campaign trail.
And the department heads that are connected to those requests have had to go through the gauntlet that is the Committee of the Whole.
Because Council is going to be the final word on whether or not these asks get fulfilled, they’re asking the kinds of questions that require some fairly detailed answers.
What will the triage centers that the administration wants to help those battling addiction in Kensington look like? How will the Office of Homeless Services spend its money? Where will the new police officers, sheriff’s deputies and corrections officers come from?
They’re all very good questions about very expensive things.
But answers to them have been a little hard to come by.
While Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson may have exacted a rather nice pound of flesh from Office of Homeless Services officials, answers to many of the other questions she and her colleagues have been asking have been met with the phrase, “We’re still working on that.”
The biggest unknown at the moment is the triage centers. Managing Director Adam Thiel came before Council on Monday to talk about them and there’s still a lot of unanswered questions. In fact, the one thing we do know is that folks want a $100 million loan to cover it.
Sheriff Rochelle Bilal’s budget request never actually made it to Council in the form she wanted them in, so she brought them to Council herself.
We’ve got time to fill in the blanks before Council ends its budget hearings. Maybe we’ll know what the scoop is by the time Council calls everyone back for additional questions.
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