Philadelphia City Council held a hearing Thursday on cutting the city's health-care costs. 

Councilman Bill Green, who said the city's employee health-care costs are escalating, said he's looking at the police union's health and wellness program as a model for other unions to follow.

City Council pushed into the school-funding fight yesterday, passing a resolution that calls on Gov. Corbett and the Legislature to continue to fund full-day kindergarten.

Corbett's proposed budget cuts would eliminate grants that fund after-school programs and full-day kindergarten, according to advocates. The resolution was introduced by Council members Jannie Blackwell, Bill Green and Curtis Jones Jr.

The Philadelphia government should be an open book, yet ironically, completely paperless, according to a new plan put forth by Councilman Bill Green last night

Central to his “Open Philadelphia Government” plan is utilizing technology. City government is still largely run with paper forms and outdated procedures, Green said, and he claims a paperless government will save the city $200 million a year while also improving government services.

Amaris Elliott-Engel
The Legal Intelligencer
April 27, 2011
 
Philadelphia's criminal justice leaders are seeking increased funding after three difficult budget years, and they got some sympathy from City Council members during budget hearings Tuesday.
City Councilman Bill Green said that the $6 million the city has saved because of decreasing numbers of city inmates could be invested in electronic monitoring bracelets, increasing the number of probation-parole officers, and other more efficacious ways of carrying out criminal justice.

Bill's latest op-ed on why Philadelphia needs to change the way it budgets tax dollars in order to maximize value for our citizens:

...Today the budget is framed as, "What is the increase or decrease compared with last year?" not "What results do we want? What is the best and most cost-effective way to achieve them? How are we tracking the results of our investment?"

 

Until we know the cost and effectiveness of what we do, we'll continue making incremental changes to department budgets year over year - upward, more often than not - without sufficiently understanding the value received for the money.

 

We must reform the budget process so that it focuses on outputs, not just inputs. I have proposed legislation that would require the city to detail the true cost of each function funded with tax dollars, to set performance goals, and to report annually on how well goals are met. The legislation would require cost-benefit analysis for all capital projects. It would compel the city to annually submit a five-year strategic plan outlining how it would use technology to improve performance goals and reduce the cost of government...

 

Read more here.