Stu Bykofsky: City Hall hiring: Deadbeat goes on
IN RECENT DAYS, Philadelphia was, metaphorically, a fine restaurant, but instead of soup du jour, we got outrage du jour, depicting a city off its rails.
IN RECENT DAYS, Philadelphia was, metaphorically, a fine restaurant, but instead of soup du jour, we got outrage du jour, depicting a city off its rails.
There was the seemingly out-of-control cop bashing a female in a Lukoil mini-mart, the "time-outs" handed down to Vince Fumo and Ruth Arnao by an unwise Anglo judge, the revelation that about 2,000 Philadelphia city employees and spouses owe about $5 million in back real-estate taxes and 723 city employees owe more than $700,000 in water bills to the city.
Rome fell in 476 A.D.
This feels like 472 A.D.
Everyone's got a tolerance level for illegal behavior - tax evasion, cell phones while driving, smoking in a bathroom, jaywalking, graffiti "art," illegal immigration - but the factoid that made me spit nickels was this: 160 people were hired by the city while being city tax delinquents.
Can you top that?
Michael Nutter did.
The mayor asserted that owing money to the city should not disqualify someone from getting a city job.
OK, what should?
Robbing a Wawa? Unlicensed bikini waxes? Sexually molesting a goat?
In a dazzling feat of compassionate justification, Nutter told the Inquirer: "Government should not be some heartless, soulless place." Most days Nutter is fly-papered to reality, but that wasn't one of them.
Being delinquent says something about the ability of people to manage their affairs. It doesn't mean, necessarily, that they are mean or evil, but why reward their bad behavior with a job from the city they short-sheeted?
How can the mayor not understand that city jobs should not go to deadbeats who owe us money? Doesn't he know how that looks to the schlubs in Mayfair and Southwest Philly and Overbrook and Olney who may scrimp and do without other things in order to pay their bills on time?
Barring deadbeats from city jobs is not just my opinion. It's shared by John F. Street.
While researching this, I happened to run into the former mayor, who seemed relaxed and happy. No surprise. Unlike Nutter, he's not like a kid who's fallen down a financial well.
Some current city-employee debts predate Nutter. They go back to Street's administration, or Ed Rendell's, or Wilson Goode's. There's one guy - the Father of All Deadbeats - whose debt stretches back to Bill Green, the current councilman's father.
Before records were computerized, Street said, city workers (and others) might get away with being tax cheats, but computers make them as easy to spot as Canadians in Speedos in Wildwood.
Finding them doesn't seem to be the problem. It's a lack of will.
In a classic understatement, City Controller Alan Butkovitz called it "a culture of unaggressive collection."
Have Quakers taken over City Hall? The Friends believe in "friendly persuasion." The city seems to believe in "let it be."
In another example of "unaggressive collection," earlier this year we learned that the city neglected to collect $1 billion in bail money over the years from those who skipped court dates.
Hey, it's only money. So what if the city is sinking like a brontosaurus into an economic tar pit? When crooks and deadbeats don't pay up, you will.
Compassion is a wonderful quality, but this is insane.
Dodging taxes is, in effect, stealing from the city.
When Jack doesn't pay taxes, Jill's increases to compensate. When Jack steals from the city, he actually steals from Jill.
If Jack has faced some adversity and doesn't have the money to make payments on his Lexus, what happens next?
Repo Man!
If Jack's a Philly job applicant?
Hire him!
There are always choices. You pay the bills most important to you, or creditors that you fear. (Remember what Rocky's job was before he entered the ring?) Philadelphia ranks low on the Scare-O-Meter.
The deadbeats remind me of Wimpy, the gluttonous character in the "Popeye" cartoon who tried to con diner patrons with the line, "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."
Tuesday never came, of course.
Of those who "can't afford" to pay the city - and some fraction may be destitute - how many own a car? A cell phone? Subscribe to Comcast?
They've made their choices about what's important. Taxes are not among them.
You don't reward deadbeats by giving them jobs, and you don't let them keep the city jobs they may have.
This isn't heartless. This is fairness.
E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns: