Summary
The City of Philadelphia projects a General Fund balance of $22.8 million, according to PICA’s Staff Report on the City of Philadelphia’s Quarterly City Managers Report (“QCMR”) for the first quarter (period ending September 30, 2020). This estimate is $28.4 million lower than the fund balance projection in the City’s FY2021-FY2025 Five Year Plan (“the Plan”), and can be attributed to FY21 projections significantly increased spending due to the pandemic, election and economic downturn. Harvey Rice, the Executive Director of PICA noted, “Due to the resurgence of COVID-19 and recent imposed restrictions on residents and businesses which could impact tax revenues, this fund balance could be depleted even further, if not completely exhausted, by the end of FY2021. As a result, we have notified the City of this concern.” The City responded that they are taking measures to address the low fund balance, such as seeking reimbursement of personnel costs from the Federal CARES Act. Mr. Rice added, “PICA will monitor the implementation of the City’s measures to ensure that a positive fund balance is maintained.” PICA’s Staff Report also identifies key management issues and tracks departmental performance for several City departments: • Overtime. FY2021 first quarter overtime costs ($40.2 million) were 10.3% of total wages, 3.8 percentage points lower than the Q1 of last year; departments spent $12.8 million less on overtime in Q1. • Staffing: Total staffing through Q1 of FY2021 is 21,882, a decrease of 279 full-time employees, or 1.3% since the first quarter of last year. • Police. First quarter Homicides increased by 54 (58.7%) compared to last year; the Homicide Clearance Rate declined by 16.1 percentage points. • Streets Department. The On-Time Recycling and Trash Collection Rates both declined considerably due to an increase in tonnage for each, due to citizens spending more time at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.