Said Street: "I think there's going to be a fight" with the city business community.
Street outlined his proposal in a letter hand-delivered to Council President Joseph E. Coleman yesterday morning during hearings on the city budget for fiscal 1987, which begins July 1.
"The mayor's plan simply calls for a real estate tax increase, which would be footed by the residential taxpayer," Street said in an interview. "I think we have to be a little bit more creative and broader in our approach. That's what I've done."
Last week, Goode asked Council to support a 6.5 percent property-tax increase to help fund the school district.
Under Street's plan, the current business-tax rate of 3.9 mills, or $3.90 per $1,000 of gross receipts, would not be reduced as Goode has proposed.
City Finance Director Carlo R. Gambetta reaffirmed this week that the Goode administration wanted to cut the rate but that it had not yet determined the rate. If the current business-tax rate is maintained, Street said, it would provide the school district with about $15.1 million next year.
In fiscal 1986, the business tax is expected to provide the city with about $126 million.
Street said that under his plan the $8 million of city money budgeted for initial development of the proposed convention center would be transferred to the schools. Street said that the proposed $455 million center was primarily a business venture and that the $8 million in city funding next year for the project could be raised through an increase in the business tax.
The city has planned to use bonds to fund $270 million of the total cost of the convention center.
Street proposed that the use-and-occupancy tax - a levy on business use of real estate, designated to support the public schools - would be increased
from 32.50 mills to provide the school district with $9.3 million more than the $52 million that the tax is expected to raise this year.
In his letter to Coleman, Street said his plan would provide the $32.4 million that he believes that the schools need for fiscal 1987 "while sparing the residential real estate taxpayer who is already strapped by increasing real estate tax assessments and increasing water and sewer bills."
Street said he did not include revenue from a sales tax on liquor that he had previously proposed, because "it is still under study."
"I think that what they ought to be looking at instead of increasing taxes is to look . . . at ways to spend less of taxpayers' dollars," DiBona said. He said Street's plan was "an attempt to use the business community as the reason not to deal with school taxes."
Street and Councilman Leland M. Beloff, Center City's two representatives in Council, fought to prevent an increase in the parking tax from 10 percent to 20 percent before Council reluctantly voted last year for the increase to balance the budget at the last minute.
Council's vote was based on an agreement with parking-lot owners that it would be a one-year increase. Now, most Council members are ready to reduce it.
DiBona said he, too, had a business-tax agreement with the Goode administration and Council. Two years ago, when separate business taxes were merged into one new single business tax, business leaders emphasized that it was a two-year commitment, he said. The business tax was expected to be set at a lower rate beginning July 1, he said.
"I never made any such agreement," Street said. "I don't know what those alleged agreements were."
