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Mayor Cherelle Parker is trying to buck up City Council support for her proposed rideshare tax to aid public schools, but it’s unclear if prospects for lawmaker approval of the hotly contested tax have improved.
Lobbyists for Uber and Lyft have become a frequent presence in City Hall, pressing councilmembers to vote against the tax. The companies are pouring money into social media ads asking residents to oppose the proposed $1-per-ride fee, which the companies argue will disproportionately harm lower-income residents.
At the same time, several councilmembers have rebelled against the proposal because they are upset about an unrelated plan to close 17 schools. The school board could vote to adopt that plan as soon as Thursday.
Parker pushed back during a council hearing Wednesday. She noted that big cities like Baltimore, Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. have rideshare taxes and argued “billion-dollar tech companies” can afford to absorb the cost rather than passing it on to riders. She cited census data that just 1% of Philadelphians earning under $50,000 use rideshare or taxis to get to work on a daily basis.
The mayor also said Philadelphia hasn’t created a new tax to support its financially beleaguered school district in more than a decade, even as its collar counties have repeatedly boosted local spending on schools.
Potential cuts in educational services “scared the daylights out of me,” Parker said. “Larger class sizes, less academic and social supports for our students, and less stability in schools that have just started to make progress. That was unacceptable to me… and I know it’s equally unacceptable to all of the members of council.”
The tenor of a subsequent hearing with Superintendent Tony Watlington was less fiery than a council session yesterday, when some of the lawmakers yelled at him and school board president Reginald Streater over the closure plans.
But they continued to complain that they were being asked to take a politically difficult vote at the same time that the district has allegedly ignored their calls to change or better explain Watlington’s facilities plan.
“I want to continue my track record of being supportive of you and then public education,” Councilmember Curtis Jones told the superintendent. “But it’s difficult for me to… knock on [residents’] doors and say, ‘by the way, I’m raising your taxes, and I’m closing your kids’ school.’ Make that make sense for me.”
An alternative to property tax hikes
Parker’s more than hour-long remarks included a history of past city-imposed taxes to increase school funding. Those include the cigarette tax, which now generates $58 million a year for the schools, according to the City Controller’s office; the liquor by the drink tax, $92 million; and a sales tax renewal, $120 million.
Since 2014, however, the city hasn’t delivered new revenue for the schools, she said, in part because Philadelphia residents cannot afford the kind of property tax hikes the suburbs use to boost education funding.
“I looked at Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montco, and the amount of times that they have raised taxes from 2020 up until now, solely dedicated to their public school systems,” she said. “Our children deserve the same kinds of educational enrichment programs that kids in the suburbs get.”
Echoing Watlington, Parker said the need for funding is particularly urgent now because $300 million in pandemic relief aid for the district has expired, worsening its longstanding structural deficit.
She initially proposed a 20 cent-per-ride tax as part of her annual city budget proposal, but boosted it to a dollar about a week later after learning that the district faced the prospect of having to eliminate 340 staff positions in schools, she said. (Watlington has since clarified that those 340 employees would be reassigned to vacant positions at other schools rather than laid off.)
Together with another proposed tax on cell phone towers, the rideshare tax would raise a little over $50 million in recurring annual revenue, allowing the district to avoid the cuts, Parker said.
Mayor asks for forbearance
The mayor acknowledged council’s anger at Watlington and the school board, which announced a supposedly “final” facilities plan that closes 17 schools just three days before tomorrow’s planned board vote. But she noted that the superintendent has made changes, reducing the number of closures from 20 and planning more investments in school renovations.
“Nothing is more frustrating in government when somebody tries to make a decision and they draw a line in the sand and say, ‘this is it,’” Parker said. “I know we’re not finished with this process, and I know we’re still going through it. My ask is that we not exhibit what you’ll hear me refer to as reflexive opposition.”
After the mayor left the chamber, Watlington and Streater took her place before council and members resumed yesterday’s grilling.
There were some small glimmers of detente, for example when Councilmember Jamie Gauthier and Watlington appeared to agree that it might work to transfer Robeson High students to another location while a new Robeson building is being constructed.
But councilmembers also continued to express displeasure at the district officials’ response to their questions.
When Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson asked for an answer to her request from Tuesday for the school board to delay its vote on the school closure plan, Streater gave a long answer that amounted to, no, but he would ask his fellow board members about it again.
“I thought y’all was going get together last night, come up with a game plan, come back,” Council President Kenyatta Johnson said.
“Well, Council President, this is a very complex, heavy thing for us,” Streater responded.
“It’s complex for y’all. It’s complex for us. We’re trying to work as a partnership, and everybody got to do a little bit of give and take,” Johnson said.
