City Council Has Questions As PPA Adopts Budget With Rate Increases
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Philadelphia Parking Authority Board adopted a new budget Friday that assumes meter rates and ticket fines will go up this year, but any increases would have to clear city council first.
Senior director Rick Dixon stressed the benefits to city and school district coffers from the rate hikes, and how the increases would generate an additional $10 million in revenue.
Dixon explains that the city would get an additional $3 million and the school district about $500,000, but most of the money would go to pension costs.
"That are going up an average of 34 percent a year over the last 14 years," said Dixon. "That squeezes the amount of cash that's available for the school district."
Dixon says he's already run these numbers by finance officials.
"They supported the revenue enhancements that we put into this budget," said Dixon.
But it's City Council who would have to approve a rate increase and Councilwoman Helen Gym, for one, is skeptical.
"I don't see a path for them getting a rate increase minus the full performance audit that we're waiting for from the Auditor General's office," said Gym.
Gym says she still doesn't know why a promised an increase in contributions to the school district never materialized after the last rate increase council approved.
"They made a promise to us in 2014 that they would deliver more than $8 million to our public schools and they have not been able to meet that promise, so I think there are a lot of outstanding questions that the parking authority has yet to answer," said Gym.
Gym says she wants those questions answered before council considers rate increases.
