DN Editorial: WITHOUT COUNCIL: That describes city-budget hearings. Why are they exempt?

IT'S BUDGET hearing time in City Council beginning this week, with the heads of city agencies and departments taking the witness stand to justify their budgets and answer questions from Council members.

All the major departments and agencies must do it, except for one.

City Council itself.

Despite urgings from the Committee of Seventy and others - including this editorial page - Council has not put its own $15 million annual budget under public scrutiny. This is an arm of city government that has 190-plus employees and whose total cost of operation approaches $26 million when you include items such as fringe benefits.

In the past, City Council members have said that they would feel awkward asking questions about their own budget, but it doesn't have to be that way.

If a hearing were held, senior staff could outline the major categories of spending, and then members of the public and other interested groups could make comments or ask questions, just as they do at the end of each Council session.

Here are a few questions for starters: How many City Council staffers have gotten raises and are they in line with the executive branch of city government? How much does Council spend on consulting contracts and who are the recipients? Are staff and resources meted out equally among the 17 Council members - or are some more equal than others?

It turns out not all the money that Council spends is in the Council budget. As reporter Ryan Briggs disclosed in a story on the news website Metropolis, there is a $1.98 million fund buried deep within the Department of Parks and Recreations budget that is for the exclusive use of the 10 district Council members.

Officially, it is known as the Philadelphia Activities Fund. Unofficially, it is known as Council's "walking-around money."

Last year, Council members used this WAM fund to hand out 1,078 grants, ranging from $500 to $6,500, to a plethora of civic, sports and community groups. The list includes not only senior centers and Little League teams but some Boy Scout troops, some Mummers groups and even some block parties.

Although the WAM fund is located within the Parks and Rec Department, officials there have no say over who gets the money.

We don't believe City Council thinks that the public is uninterested in budget matters; in previous years, they have in fact held community budget hearings out of City Hall, to strong attendance. And when Darrell Clarke was elected Council president, he vowed to do more to make Council's budget more transparent. So far, Council's online meeting calendar for this year includes no community budget hearings.

But the Nutter administration is also less than transparent on budget matters. The Mayor's Council budget address was two weeks ago. But aside from the budget in brief and the five-year plan, the full budget is nowhere on the city's website. Meanwhile, the city just created a website to track PGW's sale. If they believe that the public is interested in the finer details of a complex sale of a city asset, surely it's not a leap to believe that the public is interested in exactly how its money is being spent.

And that includes money that Council spends.