Philadelphia Safe and and Not So Sound (I hate to say it, but I told you so)

Last year, in the midst of the Mayor's race, there was a lot of talk about ethics and what not. To demonstrate his dedication to the ethics issue, one candidate affected the habit of pronouncing the word "crony" in a particularly nasal Philadelphia accent. The Committee of Seventy even went as far as to ask each candidate to sign on to an "Ethics Agenda."

At the time, I criticized the Committee of Seventy for failing to address what I had begun to call "The Nonprofit Problem." In the context of the whole Seaport Museum/Citizens' Alliance thing, I was of the opinion that any so-called Ethics Agenda was worthless unless it addressed (1) the City's use of nonprofits to provide government services and (2) the Philadelphia political establishment's use of the same nonprofits as a modern day Tammany Hall. I wrote: "there is no oversight of the multitude of nonprofits that are supported by the City by either direct or indirect payments. If the 'ethics' issue is to be addressed, light must be shone upon this rather sizable black hole in the City’s budget. The City should require annual filings accounting for their expenditures."

We learn this week that despite Philadelphia Safe and Sound's 16-member board of directors, the nonprofit "made spending decisions under pressure from [former-Mayor] Street". We cannot avoid the implication that Mayor Street used his control over Philadelphia Safe and Sound to avoid the oversight of the City's ethics regulations. Good government policies are worthless if they have no jurisdiction over nonprofits.

See, the Nonprofit Problem is not just a Fumo thing. It's a Philadelphia thing.

Not only are nonprofits an excellent warehouse for the cadre of "volunteers" that make up the core of every incumbents' GOTV street teams, but they also provide a convenient work around to get around those pesky election contribution limits and ethics laws.

Whether learned from Fumo (I doubt the practice started with him), a whole lot of Philadelphia politicians employ this M.O.

Frustrated by the fact that you can only give $2,000 to your favorite City Council candidate? Well, why not give $50,000 to her pet CDC? The CDC will use that money to hire the Council person's former campaign manager and then next time the election comes around, that person will take a "leave of absence" from the CDC to work on the Council person's re-election campaign.

Alternatively, say you want to get zoning approval for that variance to build that 55-story hotel/condo project just off Rittenhouse Square. You'd really like to wine and dine the folks over at the Planning Commission but those darn gift rules make it impossible to butter them up with a trip to your vacation home in Hilton Head or even a few trips to Barclay Prime. So, why not give $100,000 donation to the official's favorite nonprofit with the understanding that that nonprofit will hire the city official as a paid "consultant" once she resigns from her position next year? Better yet, why wait a year? Why not just have that nonprofit use your "donation" to hire the official's spouse or son or daughter or niece as its new executive director? Ever better, have the nonprofit use your donation to retain the official's spouse or son or daughter or niece as some sort of nebulous consultant!!!

Needless to say, I could fill a book thinking up ways to use nonprofits to "launder" payments made by private entities to influence elected officials. Volume 2 would detail the myriad of ways the same nonprofits could be used to divert public funds to a politician's private purposes.

As I wrote before, it seems to me a little oversight would benefit the City.

At present, the City hands out grants with no system of oversight in place. Even if you are not troubled by private donations being expended on untoward purposes, there is still the matter of all the tax dollars these nonprofits receive. How much taxpayer money is wasted on severance payments, bloated administrative staffs or otherwise diverted to some politician's personal benefit?

Without any method of peering into the finances of the myriad of nonprofit organizations operating in Philadelphia, the question is unanswerable. As I suggested before, why not condition the receipt of public funds upon each group providing an annual financial statements to the City that could be made public in a central clearinghouse maintained on the City’s website?

Detractors of such oversight may argue that the creation of such plans would impose too heavy of a burden on groups already stretched thin by meager budgets. I would counter that if a group is unable to create such a plan, it probably is not qualified to address whatever issue the City has tasked it with.

So, now that the City's largest publicly-funded nonprofit, ironically-named Philadelphia Safe and Sound, has come tumbling down, why not take this opportunity to make structural changes to the manner in which the City interacts with the myriad of nonprofits that either directly or indirectly receive money from City taxpayers?

Come on Jim Kenney, show us you are the good government guy everyone says you are. Introduce a bill requiring that all recipients of City funds must provide a detailed accounting of how every dollar of the grant was spent. Make this reporting requirement a mandatory term in every City contract.