Government Reform
Improving the way the city operates is one of Bill's highest priorities -- he understands that every dollar saved by streamlining bureaucracy is a dollar that could be spent enhancing the quality of public services or reducing Philadelphia's burdensome tax rates. Day in and day out, Bill works to make government more effective and efficient. Bill leads by example in how he runs his Council office: he is one of the few Council members who does not have a city-provided car and his office has one of the lowest payrolls. In his first week in office, Bill introduced a bill to end the DROP program for elected officials.
Historic Property Tax Reform
Bill led the charge to reform the city's dysfunctional property tax system. Bill introduced and successfully passed a bill to abolish the troubled Board of Revision of Taxes (BRT) and transfer the assessment functions to a professionally-run office. The legislation was designed to bring much needed governance reform, professionalism, and standard-setting to Philadelphia's property tax system -- a reform that had been attempted since Mayor Joe Clarke was in office. For years, citizens have suffered inequitable, inaccurate, and non-uniform property assessments -- thanks to this legislation,
More information about Bill's BRT reform legislation can be found in this fact sheet
Streamlining Government Through Technology
Bill has strongly advocated for increased investment in technology since he first ran for Council in 2007. Philadelphia's antiquated IT infrastructure severely limits the city's ability to streamline operations. By strategically investing in new technology, city government can finally be brought into the digital age, allowing public employees to focus their efforts on serving citizens rather than pushing paperwork.
Bill has introduced legislation to require the city to produce a detailed, multi-year IT strategic plan. This plan would ensure that spending on technology upgrades would be coordinated across departments and aimed at streamlining specific processes in order to enhance productivity. He also introduced legislation requiring the city to provide an electronic option for transactions -- making it easier for citizens and businesses to interact with their government; requiring the city to issue paperless paychecks (as Social Security is already doing); and called for hearings on how the city can use workflow process analysis and cloud computing to reduce costs and improve services.
Bill released a detailed plan for his vision of a paperless city government, which can be downloaded here.
Budget Process Reform
The recent economic downturn has brought increased attention to how broken Philadelphia's budget process is. Since 2008, Philadelphians have been forced to choose between drastic service cuts or burdensome tax increases -- with little quality information available to help people make informed, independent decisions about spending priorities.
To improve Philadelphia's budget process and ensure that the decisions made by the Mayor and City Council are properly deliberated, Bill introduced legislation to require the City to prepare a program-based budget that presents the true cost of performing core public services and evaluates the effectiveness of those programs. Bill also introduced legislation requiring cost-benefit analysis of the projects funded in the city's capital budget, including the expected payback period and return on investment for each project. This kind of information already drives decision-making by businesses and other governments -- it's time for Philadelphia to do so also.
Additionally, Bill supports increasing openness and transparency in how public dollars are spent by requiring awarded contracts and the city's check register to be posted online, and requiring fiscal impact statements for all new legislation.
Ethics and Campaign Finance Reform
Bill was a chief sponsor of significant significant ethics and campaign finance reform legislation passed by City Council in 2010. The legislation included bills requiring lobbyists to register with the city and disclose their lobbying efforts, imposing campaign finance limits on inaugural and transition expenses, and consolidating and strengthening the penalties for violations of the city's ethics and campaign finance laws. The Committee of Seventy, the Board of Ethics, and other key stakeholders testified in support of the legislation. Click here for a summary of the reforms.
Also with respect to government reform, Bill has co-sponsored legislation implementing term limits for City Council members and addressing concerns with the city's row offices.
Bill has also answered the Committee of 70's Ethics Questionnaire - available here.
For more information:
Bill No. 100492: IT strategic plan
Bill No. 100493: Electronic option for city transactions
Bill No. 100061: Creating cabinet-level Chief Information Officer (companion charter question is available here)
Bill No. 080755: Paperless paychecks
Res. 080777: Hearings on workflow processes
Res. No. 100512: Cloud computing
Paperless Government (policy paper)
Bill No. 100490: Program-based budgeting
Bill No. 100491: Cost-benefit analysis for capital budget
Bill No. 080798: Fiscal impact statements
Bill No. 080799: Fiscal impact statements (charter amendment)
Summary of ethics reform legislation
Bill No. 100125: Penalties for ethics and campaign finance violations
Bill No. 100127: Lobbyist registration
Bill No. 100122: Campaign finance reforms
Bill No. 100124: Litigation funds
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