Backlog

Toll Bros. Inc., which sells homes in 185 subdivisions throughout the United States, said yesterday that the market for expensive new homes was strong in the third quarter as profit, sales and backlog surged to record levels. Toll Bros., based in Huntingdon Valley, also said that over the last 16 weeks, potential buyers had placed an unusually high number of deposits on homes to be built in its subdivisions. This "should yield record results in 2004," Toll Bros. said. The home builder's earnings for the quarter ended July 31 rose 27.5 percent to $68.2 million from $53.5 million in the same quarter a year ago. On a per-share basis, the company earned 90 cents for the quarter, compared with 70 cents a year ago. Revenue rose to $693 million from $580.

The interim chief of police said yesterday that he will focus on improving the department's emergency dispatch system and clearing up the backlog of internal affairs cases. Edwin Figueroa moved into the department's top job Thursday, after Robert E. Allenbach was suspended with intent to dismiss by Melvin "Randy" Primas Jr., Camden's state-appointed chief operating officer, and Mayor Gwendolyn Faison. The chief's suspension with pay followed charges of mismanagement and insubordination.

IN THE past, big snowstorms in Philadelphia usually resulted in 200 to 300 "street tree emergencies," with neglected trees at risk for tumbling down from the added weight. Falling tree limbs cause property damage, but also injuries and death. This year's big snowstorm, Fairmount Park's chief of operations Jim Donaghy told City Council this week, resulted in just one such emergency. What a difference commitment and money can make. Five years ago, the Rendell administration had to be pressured by City Councilman Michael Nutter into doing even the minimum to attack a five-year backlog of 8,500 trees that needed pruning or removal.

As Pennsylvania's unemployment-compensation appeals system staggers under a mounting backlog of cases, thousands of unemployed workers are going without benefits. In July 2000, the state had a backlog of 2,547 unemployment appeals, and nearly 80 percent of those were resolved within 30 days. At the end of December, there were 17,706 cases on backlog, and barely 7 percent were resolved in a month, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. "The intent of unemployment compensation is to pay compensation to employees who were let go through no fault of their own," said Denis Geoghegan, administrator of unemployment-compensation appeals at the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.

Pennsylvania's new low-cost health insurance program for low-income workers and the unemployed is close to enrollment capacity - just as start-up delays and backlogs seem to have cleared up. The response to the adultBasic program shows "this is a need for the community at large," Deputy Insurance Commissioner Patricia Stromberg said. Stromberg estimated that 300,000 low-income Pennsylvanians qualify for adultBasic, but the $76 million allocated for the first year will pay to insure only 40,000 of them.

In an effort to stop lead dust in old buildings from poisoning the city's youngest residents, Philadelphia has filed suit against 500 property owners, officials said yesterday. The owners, officials said, had ignored repeated Health Department warnings requiring them to fix the problem after tests showed children living in the properties had high levels of the toxic metal in their blood. The homeowners and landlords named in the suits could face fines of $300 a day and liens on their properties if they do not act immediately.

Gov. McGreevey nominated Sean Dalton, a lawyer born into one of Gloucester County Democrats' first families, as the next county prosecutor yesterday. Dalton, 40, a former assemblyman who serves as first assistant county counsel, will appear before the state Senate for confirmation next week. If confirmed, he will take over for Mary White, an assistant prosecutor who was appointed acting prosecutor after Andrew Yurick's term ended Jan. 31. McGreevey greeted Dalton's family - including brother Dan, a former state senator and secretary of state, and father William, a longtime Glassboro mayor - as old friends.

Former parole board chairman Andrew Consovoy has been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing after a two-year investigation, a state official said yesterday. John Hagerty, a spokesman for the state Division of Criminal Justice within the Attorney General's Office, said a letter sent last month informed Consovoy's attorney that the investigation had been closed and that no charges would be filed. "Certainly, it was a thorough investigation, and ultimately it did not rise to the point where criminal charges should be filed," Hagerty said.

The New Jersey State Police's agencywide effort to overhaul police operations and end racial profiling is showing signs of success, according to a report by the agency's federal monitors released yesterday. The 144-page document, based on a seven-month period ending in December, does not describe any instances in which troopers stopped motorists based on their race. In fact, the study said stops were conducted "almost universally . . . for reasons that reflected a focus on the New Jersey State Police core mission: public safety.

Nearly all of the 250,000 trees that line Philadelphia streets have a story or two. There's the branch that slammed into the hood of a brand-new car in Olney. The limb that took a chunk out of a Victorian porch in West Philadelphia. The dying maple that Germantown neighbors named "The Tree of Damocles" after the mythical sword that was always ready to fall. When the city begins a program to eliminate the backlog of thousands of sick and dead street trees in July, it will begin to overhaul a system that has been woefully underfunded and, in some cases, fatal.