June 13, 2024
Thom Carroll/For PhillyVoice
Mayor Cherelle Parker's $6.37 billion budget, which begins July 1 and covers the fiscal 2025, was approved by City Council on Thursday.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker's first budget was unanimously approved by City Council on Thursday.
The $6.37 billion "One Philly" budget, which begins July 1 and covers the fiscal 2025, keeps tax rates flat and includes funding for 400 new police officers, additional sanitation and cleaning, and $100 million for a drug rehabilitation center in Northeast Philly.
The move was anticipated after the council's Committee of the Whole, which includes all members, initially approved the budget last week. The mayor, who took office in January, said she plans to sign the budget into law Friday.
But not everyone was happy. Members of the National Domestic Workers Alliance testified condemning the budget for cutting $467,000 from the Department of Labor, hurting the Office of Worker Protections.
"City Council approved labor legislation that is applauded all over the country, however it has again left those mandates unfunded and unenforced," said domestic worker Maria Carmen Diaz, referring to the creation of the office. "It is so shameful that the Office of Worker Protections is in such condition even though we know how much Philadelphia has grown."
Nicole Kligerman, the director of the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, said domestic workers "deserved so much more respect" than what they were given in the budget.
"Council and Mayor Parker are cutting $467,000 from the poorest people, Black, Brown, undocumented, don't speak English, gender-oppressed single moms — for why?" Kligerman said. "Whatever kind of political stuff happens in this building, to leave these women on the cutting-room floor is absolutely unacceptable."
The council also unanimously passed bills altering the bidding process for nonprofits entering into contracts with the city and allowing the use of automated speed cameras on Broad Street.
