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Council passes $4.2 billion budget

City Council passed the first budget of Mayor Kenney's administration Thursday, a $4.19 billion plan that includes funding for prekindergarten, community schools, and parks and recreation improvements paid for by a beverage tax.

City Council passed the first budget of Mayor Kenney's administration Thursday, a $4.19 billion plan that includes funding for prekindergarten, community schools, and parks and recreation improvements paid for by a beverage tax.

The budget, passed on the final day of Council's spring session, has $20 million more spending than when first proposed in March, and $192 million more than the city's 2016 budget.

The budget increase is due in part to rises in pension and employee benefit costs, city spokesman Mike Dunn said.

The budget includes more money for police and fire training and equipment as well as an investment in the city's 911 technology.

"Budgets are tough every year," Council President Darrell L. Clarke said after a marathon six-hour meeting, during which more than 100 bills were on the agenda. "There's going to be a varying degree of winners and losers."

In addition to $409.5 million over five years in programs funded by the tax on sugary drinks and diet sodas, the budget includes:

A $12 million increase in funding for the Office of Information Technology, covered by a state grant, to fund upgrades to the city's 911 system.

$550,000 annually for five years to help pay for 800 police body cameras and the equipment needed to manage the cameras.

$30 million over six years for infrastructure improvements at the Police Academy Firearms Training facility, police district offices, and headquarters.

$600,000 annually for the city's Storefront Improvement Program, a commercial-corridor revitalization program.

$30 million over six years for Fire Department infrastructure needs and equipment, as well as $47.5 million for new vehicles.

In its last day before the summer recess, Council also passed dozens of bills and resolutions.

It passed a bill decriminalizing certain nuisance crimes, such as public drunkenness and failure to disperse. The bill, sponsored by Curtis Jones Jr. on behalf of the Kenney administration, allows law enforcement to handle certain minor offenses with civil penalties instead of arrests. Jones called the bill a companion to Kenney's marijuana-decriminalization bill passed last year.

"We wanted to make the punishment fit the crime," Jones said. "It does kind of say to a good kid having a good time, we're not going to make it an outcome for the rest of your life.

"You might be a brilliant scientist, economist, or a schoolteacher, but because of that one day's mistake, the rest of your life is headed in a different trajectory."

An increase in the city's real estate transfer tax also passed. The 0.1 percent increase raises the tax on a $100,000 sale by $100. The tax is currently 3 percent and levied any time real estate is sold in the city.

Clarke proposed to use revenue from the tax to pay for debt service on a $100 million bond to fund improvements to the city's aging low-income housing. Under his proposal, $60 million would go to two city programs - one that provides free electrical, plumbing, and heating repairs, and a second that pays for disability-friendly modifications for homeowners.

The remaining $40 million would go to create an affordable-housing repair program.

Freshman Councilman Allan Domb sponsored a bill, passed Thursday, that precludes anyone delinquent on city taxes from getting certain licenses and permits from the Department of Licenses and Inspections.

Before Council adjourned, Clarke told his colleagues he considered them "the most productive Council in Council history" and wished them a good summer: "School's out!"

jterruso@phillynews.com

215-854-5506@juliaterruso