Published: April 17, 2009

City Council formally asked Mayor Nutter yesterday to put an increase in the wage tax on the table as city leaders began haggling over ways to raise $681 million to close a yawning budget gap.

By asking Finance Director Rob Dubow to confirm that city tax revenue had dipped by at least 2 percent, Council members are following state rules that would allow them to raise the wage tax.

The measure to ask Dubow to attest to the city's revenue problems passed, 15-2. The Pennsylvania Taxpayer Relief Act, which authorized the use of gaming revenue to reduce the city wage tax, requires such a step to prevent the city from raiding gaming funds in the absence of an emergency.

Councilman Bill Green said the resolution was "not a call for a wage-tax increase."

"We respectfully say all options should be on the table," Green said.

Councilmen Frank DiCicco and Jim Kenney, who have warned against a backlash in the state legislature, voted against the resolution.

For this year, the tax is 3.93 percent for residents and 3.5 percent for people who live outside the city and work in Philadelphia.

The mayor does not want to see the wage tax increased.

Instead, he has proposed a two-year, temporary property-tax increase that would ask residents to pay 19 percent more in the 2010 fiscal year than they did in the current year, which ends June 30. In 2011, they would pay 14 percent more than in the current year.

Council members have said their constituents can't take such an increase and want to explore boosting the wage tax, which Nutter sees as a jobs-killer.

The city needs legislative action to implement other aspects of Nutter's budget, including changes to the structure of the pension plan that would spread costs over a longer period, and a proposed 1-cent increase in the sales tax.

Also yesterday, Councilman Darrell L. Clarke introduced a bill that would allow the use of PVC pipe in underground connections from homes to the city sewer system.

Clarke said he offered the bill as one of the few areas of agreement with the plumbers union. He added that he would continue to pursue his previous bill, which would extend the use of PVC instead of copper, brass, or cast iron to the interiors of large residential buildings as a cost-saving measure.

In other business:

DiCicco, as promised, introduced legislation to create a special district around the Strawbridge's building at Eighth and Market Streets to allow for development of the Foxwoods Casino.

Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. called for hearings to examine the impact on tenants of buildings that fail inspections or that are cited by the Department of Licenses and Inspections for violations. Council also adopted a resolution of his to hold hearings to find ways to protect renters victimized by foreclosures on landlords.

Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown introduced a bill that would offer tax credits to distressed businesses harmed by public-works projects, such as the reconstruction of the Market Street El in West Philadelphia and of Germantown Avenue in Mount Airy.

Councilwoman Maria Quiñones-Sánchez offered a bill requiring city subcontractors to pay prevailing wages and benefits to workers. That would include about two dozen security officers at city-funded homeless shelters whose wages were recently slashed in a cost-cutting move.