Top Nutter aides taking pay cuts to be here

"The best and the brightest" whom Mayor Nutter culled from jobs outside government joined his administration at considerable expense - namely, their own.

Consider city Commerce Director Andrew Altman.

At his home in New York last year, he pulled in $688,261 from his real estate consulting firm, Altman Development L.L.C.

In his Philadelphia position, he will earn less than a third of that - $185,000 - and will no longer have his real estate business to fall back on.

"Altman Development, as a business, for all practical reasons is gone," Altman said. "It was me, and then that was it. We will shut down."

Details about his finances became part of the public record May 1 when he and hundreds of other city officials had to disclose their 2007 finances in reports to the Philadelphia Records Department.

Such reports are an annual routine for elected officials and most senior aides, but they provide a first glimpse into the newcomers leading Nutter's City Hall.

Imposed after the 1980 Abscam scandal, the city's disclosure rules are designed to help the news media and the public spot potential conflicts of interest.

But they're not foolproof.

Altman, for instance, volunteered in an interview some information that he was not required to disclose in writing: He shares a partnership interest in a Stamford, Conn., development project with Lubert-Adler, a real estate private equity firm. Altman said he would recuse himself from any decisions involving the Philadelphia firm, which has helped finance the redevelopment of at least 17 residential properties in the city.

Among others who left high-paying jobs were chief of staff Clay Armbrister, who last year earned $397,078 as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Temple University (his current salary is $198,500), and Deputy Mayor for Health and Opportunities Don Schwarz, who received $425,265 last year on the University of Pennsylvania faculty. He now earns $160,000.

City Managing Director Camille Barnett also saw her income dip - by $50,000. She reported giving up a $249,868-a-year job as a strategic consulting director at the Philadelphia-based Public Financial Management firm before becoming the city's No. 2 official, at a salary of $195,000.

Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey disclosed that the District of Columbia paid him $117,000 last year to buy him out of his contract as police chief there. He also reported earning $134,000 for consulting work for the U.S. Senate, the Washington Convention Center, and the Police Executive Research Forum. His Philadelphia salary is $195,000.

In filling out the forms, some officials seemed to exercise an abundance of caution.

City Inspector General Amy Kurland, for example, went so far as to reveal that one of her children earned $1,000 in retail sales last year at We Love Pets, a Web company that sells puppies. Similarly, city communications specialist Mark McDonald included his daughter's revenue of $3,657 from marketing detergent for a company named Cott'n Wash.