Mayor Parker busting the personnel budget

While Cherelle Parker — Philadelphia’s 100th and first Black female mayor — promised no new taxes in her first budget address, she did not mention that she was more than doubling the mayor’s budget, a move that even the friendly Inquirer described as “unusual.”

Her budgeted staff is exploding from 39 positions under Jim Kenney to 113. That’s an 189.7% increase, 

Unusual? For me, maybe “grotesque” would have been the more apt term. Or “ginormous.” Or “unprecedented” and “unwarranted.”

You get the point. I am not a fan of the cash avalanche from Parker a/k/a Jobs.com. Was she channeling Oprah when the TV host handed out cars to members of her audience? “You get a job, and you get a job, and you get a job!”

The Inquirer sought to forgive explain Parker’s wild excess in the usual ways, quoting toadies staffers as saying the money was necessary to attract the best and the brightest, meaning the top tier of Parker’s campaign staff, I guess.

I read the Inquirer story closely. In the 22 paragraphs there was not a single paragraph with anyone saying anything negative about the money grab.

The Inquirer could not find a single good government type to at least question the requested windfall?

Remember that derisive term popularized locally by Vince Fumo — OPM?

That stands for Other People’s Money, funds that flow from elsewhere into your own pockets.

In an attempt to alibi explain the exploding money fountain, the Inquirer tried to put it into some kind of context.

“It’s unsurprising that Parker has gravitated toward a top-heavy administration,” the Inquirer reported. “The mayor has said repeatedly that she is a process-oriented leader, meaning that she wants a consistent structure and as much information as possible before making major decisions, such as naming top appointees or crafting policy decisions.”

Uh-huh.

Another way to express that word salad is bureaucracy. 

Does the term “too many cooks spoil the broth” ring a bell?

Sometimes “smaller” can be a virtue.

Avis built a reputation around it being No. 2 to the much larger Hertz. (That was then. Enterprise is now the largest.)

There was a huge flap just about a year ago when Sheriff Rochelle Bilal got caught trying to double her salary, and applying funds intended to hire deputy sheriffs for raises to her executives and other staffers.

A key difference here is that Parker did not try to enrich herself. She simply expanded the trough to accommodate a lot more pigs.

Called on to do the ‘splaining was Parker’s chief of staff, Tiffany W. Thurman. 

“The proposed budget for the office of the mayor is increasing because we’re doing big things in [20]25, with many of them coming right out of the mayor’s office,” she said, redundantly.

The mayor’s salary is $261,497, according to city records, which is not the top city salary — not even in the Top 15. (Highest paid city employee — medical examiner, $352,637.)  I could not find Thurman’s salary on the data website, which probably has not yet been updated. 

This is Parker’s proposed budget.

Let’s see if anyone on City Council wants to cut short Parker’s honeymoon by saying nay to the amazing increase she has requested.