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Controller race is a fight for the future

City Controller Alan Butkovitz is a political animal, an ambitious Democrat with his sights on the mayor's office one day.

Incumbent Democratic City Controller Alan Butkovitz shakes his finger at GOP challenger Al Schmidt during a debate last week moderated by Loraine Ballard Morrill at Clear Channel Studios in Bala Cynwyd.
Incumbent Democratic City Controller Alan Butkovitz shakes his finger at GOP challenger Al Schmidt during a debate last week moderated by Loraine Ballard Morrill at Clear Channel Studios in Bala Cynwyd.Read moreLAURENCE KESTERSON / Staff Photographer

City Controller Alan Butkovitz is a political animal, an ambitious Democrat with his sights on the mayor's office one day.

To get there, he first must hold on to his current job. Republican challenger Al Schmidt, a self-described "square and dull" former federal auditor, aims to take it at the polls tomorrow.

The odds are against Schmidt, a newcomer lacking the name recognition, powerful union allies, or party machinery that Butkovitz enjoys.

But the two are also fighting for their political futures.

For Butkovitz, "a really dramatic win, even with a low turnout, would probably say something about his chances to reach higher office," said Zack Stalberg, president of the Committee of Seventy, a civic watchdog group.

"By the same token, if Schmidt wants to have a career in elective politics, it wouldn't be good if he gets creamed," Stalberg said.

Butkovitz, 57, says he understands the city and how to use his office to fix its problems - with audits of school finances, crumbling police facilities, and fatally slow emergency-response times.

Butkovitz says he knows when to punch public officials with public criticism and when to embrace them.

"You have to be strong enough to operate in the political jungle of Philadelphia," Butkovitz said.

Schmidt, 38, says Butkovitz, as a Democratic ward leader, won't take on sacred political institutions. That, Schmidt says, makes Butkovitz the custodian of the status quo in a city with a sky-high tax burden and looming debt.

"We don't have a city government that, at present, functions nearly as efficiently and effectively as it ought to," Schmidt said during a debate last week hosted by the League of Women Voters, Clear Channel Radio, the Committee of Seventy, and the University of Pennsylvania's Fels Institute of Government.

Schmidt says he would audit city departments yearly, as required by the charter. Butkovitz has moved the office to performance-based analyses that look deeper into the effectiveness of a department. That policy has put the office behind on the annual audits Schmidt calls for, with Butkovitz yet to produce an audit from 2008.

To Schmidt's supporters, he is a bright star who can invigorate a party outregistered 7-1 by Democrats, with a resume from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan auditing arm of Congress. "They can't beat the intellect. They can't beat the bipartisanship," Republican ward leader Sean Reilly said at a fund-raiser.

Butkovitz describes Schmidt as a carpetbagging, right-wing operative without a plan for the office. One of Butkovitz's favorite accusations is that Schmidt is a loyal Republican, naming a $2,000 contribution to George W. Bush in 2003 among Schmidt's sins.

A primary fight

Voters showed some taste for change in the primary, when Butkovitz's two opponents split nearly 60 percent of the vote. Butkovitz won with more than 40 percent.

Schmidt attributes the tough primary to Butkovitz's ties to the Democratic machine.

He notes that among those working for Butkovitz are six employees paid for by the Philadelphia School District, a setup that allows them to engage in politics off the job, which civil-service employees are prohibited from doing. A similar arrangement of school-district funding for nearly 80 workers at the Board of Revision of Taxes has come under fire from Mayor Nutter, and they would be absorbed into the civil service under a Nutter proposal.

During the debate, Butkovitz called criticism of his patronage workers a "red herring."

"The problems for the man on the street in Philadelphia are not patronage-related," Butkovitz said.

Schmidt disagreed, and noted that Lisa Deeley, one of those patronage employees, is the treasurer for Butkovitz's campaign committee, and for two political action committees, his 54th Ward political action committee and PAC 102, which gave Butkovitz $5,000 in 2006.

'These shots'

Schmidt said Deeley's political work raised questions about the political reach of the controller's office. Such attacks have irked Butkovitz.

"How do I deserve to take these shots as if I'm some stooge within the Philadelphia political structure?" Butkovitz asked. "I would never have the arrogance to tell people I'm not political - and he can't say that, either."

Butkovitz notes that Schmidt, who moved from the Washington, D.C., area in 2005 with his wife, a Philadelphia native, was the executive director of the Republican City Committee from January 2008 to January 2009 and the unpaid deputy director for six months before that.

Butkovitz said the notion that he won't take on the establishment belied his history in the city and during his 15 years as a state representative in Harrisburg.

"He's one guy who was never afraid to speak his mind in the legislature," said Patrick Gillespie, business manager of the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, a Butkovitz backer.

Butkovitz said he took on Philadelphia School Superintendent Paul Vallas even though Democratic leaders such as former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo told him to back off. His audit showed a $180 million deficit.

When Mayor Nutter was warning about his doomsday "Plan C" budget that would have cut the police and fire departments and the courts, Butkovitz declared the plan a fantasy.

Butkovitz also recently moved to garnishee the wages of city workers who owe property taxes, a first in the history of the controller's office, he says.

Schmidt has tried to separate himself from the Republican establishment, though the City Committee has endorsed him and he has been visiting Republican and Democratic ward meetings.

He has allied himself with the Loyal Opposition, a cadre of younger conservative Republican mavericks in the city, and has taken shots at the Republican-controlled Parking Authority.

The controller's audit of the Philadelphia Parking Authority, released this year, is a sensitive topic for Butkovitz. He said it pointed out real problems at the agency, such as a top-heavy management structure. But the outside company that was paid $122,000 to perform the study warned that it was so limited as to not be considered an audit.

Butkovitz blamed its limitations on a lack of resources from Gov. Rendell, who had called for an audit of the agency after a series of stories in The Inquirer and Daily News.

Schmidt has made the PPA report the centerpiece of his attack on Butkovitz, and has taken on his own party in the process.

Schmidt says that Vince Fenerty, the Parking Authority's executive director and a Republican ward leader, told him in the summer of 2008 that Butkovitz was being "very helpful" and planned to release the audit around Christmas of 2008 "so no one would read it." Schmidt said Fenerty later told him in December (the report would not be released until the summer) to "back off" Butkovitz after Schmidt wrote a scathing letter to the Daily News.

Butkovitz said he never discussed the audit with Fenerty except maybe in passing. Fenerty concurred, and said he scolded Schmidt about the letter before he knew Schmidt was running for controller. He said he did so because he thought Butkovitz and others would perceive the letter as coming from him.

Schmidt's targeting of the Parking Authority has divided his party.

"People are supportive, some are disappointed," said Michael Meehan, general counsel to the city GOP. "But we're going to put out a ballot with him and support the entire ballot."

Controller Candidates

Alan Butkovitz, 57, Democrat.

Education: Bachelor of arts, Temple University; law degree, Temple.

Experience: City controller, 2006-present; Pennsylvania House of Representatives, 1991-2005.

Quotable: "We have to live in a real world. This not a graduate-school course, it's not theoretical, it's not something that can be managed with platitudes. City government is, many times, the only thing that stands between life and death for many people. . . . You have to have a plan,

we have a plan, we've been working our plan. My opponent does not have

a plan."

Web site: http://alanbutkovitz.com

Al Schmidt, 38, Republican.

Education: Bachelor of arts, Allegheny College; doctorate in political history, Brandeis University.

Experience: Former senior policy analyst, U.S. Government Accountability Office; analyst, President Clinton's Commission on Holocaust Assets in the U.S.

Quotable: "Patronage has no place in Philadelphia's city government, period. It is at the very core of what's ailing Philadelphia city government. . . . You need to insulate, as much as possible, city government from political influence. And at present, we have a City Controller's Office that is suffering from that same problem."

Web site: http://www.schmidt09.com

Length of term of controller post:

Four years.

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