During Alan Butkovitz’s three terms, the City Controller’s Office won several national awards, realized more than $800 million of revenue and savings, enforced minority-participation standards and uncovered corruption.
PGN: What would you say are some of your most notable accomplishments since you were re-elected in 2013?
AB: Certainly, the Mayor’s Fund for Philadelphia; the beefing up of the county corruption rule of the office; the work that our policy unit has done on analyzing the impact of tax credits; the unmasking of the facts in inspections and inactivity regarding demolitions; [and] the award-winning analysis that we did on brownouts and rotations of the fire department.
PGN: What is your overall outlook on the city’s current financial position?
AB: There is a lot of vibrancy that’s indicated by rising tax collections in the real-estate and sales areas but there’s precariousness mostly because of the financial situation in the schools.
PGN: How have you, or how do you plan to, increase transparency in the City Controller’s Office?
AB: Everything that we do is online. You can even contact us with a complaint through our WatchDog app. You can take photos of conditions like abandoned trash and send that to us without even giving us the name of the street. We can track it down. I think we do a good job of trying to make complicated stuff easily understandable to laymen. I think it’s going to be a matter of doing that on a broader basis and the accumulation of more facts about more functions of the city government.
PGN: Many people are concerned about the trickle-down effect of decisions by the Trump administration. What role do you see local governments, in particular the City Controller’s Office, playing in that process?
AB: I think the city and the school district have risked a federal grant cutoff because they’ve taken a “so what” attitude toward grant compliance. We’re going to have to be extremely diligent now so that Trump doesn’t get the slightest pretext to cut off grants. A few years ago, there was a finding in the school district that they misused money that was dedicated for school lunches and the federal education department came in and assessed a penalty of $50 million, which the Obama administration did not require the schools to pay. I think with the Trump administration, they are not going to bend over backwards to forgive us or let us go on things like that. I don’t believe they will illegally win things like the sanctuary city withholding. They will try to accomplish it by being extremely strict in their interpretation of grants. That’s why the city has to take our grant reviews much more seriously, be timely and be very careful that the money is used for the assigned purpose so that we do not give Trump an excuse to cut off up to $300 million in federal funds.
PGN: What actions have you taken to further equality for the LGBT community, either in a personal or professional setting?
AB: Our office, from day one in 2006, made sure people had full rights regardless of orientation. In fact, our top deputy [and our top PR person were] gay. We actually had to withstand a revolt in the office where there was some antigay activity taken and we took an extremely aggressive approach in that we did an intensive investigation to try to identify the malefactor and we created a sensitivity training program that all employees have to participate [in]. Since then, I believe we’ve increased — and we don’t talk about it [laughs] — the number of gays in the office. Other than that incident, there hasn’t been anything that’s risen to attention as a problem[atic] work environment.
PGN: What have you, or what will you, do to ensure funding equality for LGBT groups/citizens?
AB: It will depend on whether there’s a specific complaint raised about the impact of city policies on that front. Generally, we just look to make sure there’s no stealing going on and that things are within program guidelines but if there’s an issue that is asserted by any of the nonprofits or groups, if there’s a discriminatory intent or impact, then we will measure it.
PGN: Why should the LGBT community vote for you?
AB: I’ve recreated that office. We are national award-winners. We are cutting-edge. Auditors and offices around the country take our findings and our procedures and implement them. Particularly with the concentration of gays in Center City and among the very highly educated and sophisticated portion of the city, I think they want a progressive, scientific, fact-based and evidence-based government. We have been providing it and I’ve been standing up to the powers-that-be, resisting attempts to deflect critical audits or to avoid the real evaluation of programs. I think that community really appreciates telling truth to power and standing up to the powers-that-be and not be[ing] steamrolled.
For more information on Alan Butkovitz, visit www.alanbutkovitz.com.