Along with setting up the 3-1-1 system, PhillyStat was the signature program of Negrin's predecessor, Camille Barnett, who resigned June 30. In spending $2 million annually on the two initiatives modeled after similar operations in Baltimore and other cities, Nutter administration officials portrayed the cost as an investment in making the city more customer-friendly and efficient.
Yet, as almost his first official act, on July 1 Negrin suspended PhillyStat sessions for a reevaluation. (The Police Department's crime-tracking system originally imported from New York City remains in use in a modified form.)
When the PhillyStat suspension came to light this week, Negrin offered a verdict on the program that - coming 21/2 years into the mayor's term - was, in itself, telling. He called the initiative "an interesting reporting mechanism," but "not really performance management."
If that's true, then PhillyStat could become a metaphor for the Nutter administration's broader failure to grapple with the need to streamline city government in any meaningful way.
Even though back-to-back budget crises have provided the mayor with the political cover to act boldly, he has enacted few, if any, structural reforms that downsized government spending. Instead, city property owners have been hit with a 10 percent tax increase, while the sales tax was raised to 8 percent. Tough decisions are postponed. Steps like rolling firehouse brownouts are no substitute for confronting head-on the issue of how many stations the city needs and can afford.
In defending their budget moves, the mayor and his top aides frequently mentioned the development of PhillyStat as a key tool to sharpen their thinking about right-sizing City Hall.
It's good to hear a Nutter spokesman insist PhillyStat isn't dead, coupled with Negrin's pledge to restore it by year-end. But what has it produced for the millions spent so far? And can it be retooled? Given that other cities have already implemented systems that work, this should not be hard to accomplish.
Since governing smarter is what voters expected of Nutter, making PhillyStat live up to its promise stands as an important test for this mayor.
