by Van Stone - vspfoundation@yahoo.com (610) 931-8810
Brett Mandel, he calls himself the Budget Bulldog, is testing the audit accountability of Philadephia City Controller Incumbent Alan Butkovitz. Local politicians understand just like their constituents do that the old saying is true when it comes to standing up to justifiable challenges, pressure busts pipes. So far, Mandel has backed the City Controller into a corner where Alan seems to dodge the challenger’s questions about managing a better budget particularly dealing with one of the Philadephia Row Seats called the Clerk of Quarter Sessions.
According to Mandel, Butkovitz was directly responsible for waste and fraud mismanagement in city government. And also, Alan "remained silent," about the fact that the Clerk of Quarter Sessions failed to pay the city more than $5 million in fees from forfeited bail. Also the Clerk of Quarter Sessions is far behind in the handling of $1.4 billion court fines and refunds. And the City of Philadelphia is owed $1 billion from defendants they didn’t show up for trial after they had been released on bail. A better program might have been put together by the leadership of the city controller so that millions of dollars would not perhaps be uncollected. It seems this has been the norm during the last 2 years.Brett has publicly pledged to audit each city agency annually, making the city’s budget transparent by posting it on the Internet. Butkovitz systematically discredited Mandel’s proposed policies and provided examples of how he has already improved the city’s budget during his term. Consider that most of the city departments have been struggling terribly with cutting cost and creating new program ideals where there would be available money from getting a better grip on their budgets. Butkovitz’s only answer to Mandel’s claims was that Mandel’s plan to audit each city agency annually is "penny ante." Butkovitz claims that his office conducts departmental audits on a two-year cycle instead.
And “if you do them every year,” replied Butkovitz “then it doesn’t leave enough time for Performance and Special Audits.”
Butkovitz stands behind his version that things in Philly are looking pretty well when it comes to the controller because before he took office in 2005, the City Controllers Office only conducted two Performance Audits a year. “Now it conducts seven,” said Butkovitz. Although Butkovitz prides himself in using a Performance Audit or investigation of the Philadelphia School District, under Paul Vallas’ tenure, to uncover a $200 million deficit, as an example of how well the incumbent has been handling things, he failed to mention that the Vallas deficit does not speak volume enough to answer Mandel’s claims.
Mandel is questioning Butkovitz about the overall budget. Mandel seems to understand clearly that the overall budget is generally the best starting point to gain an understanding of existing funding patterns. And Mandel is attacking the very areas of most concern to the Philadelphian people today. The economy (controlling inflation-high cost of living); jobs (unemployment and underemployment); gasoline and oil prices; crime (vital benefits for cops and fire personnel); schools (serving all of the needs that exist within the constituency groups that an agency serves); (taxes; health (soaring medical cost); the environment (clean air, water).
Mandel so far seems to have the development of confidence among other city officials and is waiting for Butkovitz to bring up budgetary matters that both candidates can talk about.
