Nutter proposes “unprecedented” $120 million IT budget, moves toward paperless

Mayor Nutter has announced plans to significantly invest in city information technology and pursue paperless government efficiencies in an attempt to improve tech infrastructure, cut costs and streamline city services.

“We may not be completely paperless, but we will use less paper,” Nutter said in his budget address to City Council this morning before a packed crowed that filled the historic Council chamber’s floor and balcony seating.

If City Council approves the budget, Nutter says that an “unprecedented” investment in city technology will provide $120 million to improve IT over the next five years, including $25 million in FY11.

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Local, national VCs back “Startup Visa” law

Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rich Lugar (R-Ind.) have proposed a new type of visa for foreign entrepreneurs that have received capital and are looking to start a company in America.

The new visa can be awarded to anyone who has raised at least $250,000 ($100,000 of which must come from a U.S. investor) and is able to create five jobs and $1,000,000 in revenue in two years. The bill has received support from the National Venture Capital Association and 160 VCs offered support in a letter to congress, including three partners of First Round Capital.

As reported by Technically Philly, Mayor Nutter is undergoing comparable efforts to attract technology companies and startups using the city’s tax structure as an incentive. What if the city promised additional bonuses to recipients of the Startup Visa? Especially those who’d like to start a video game studio?

City of Philadelphia to offer tax breaks to tech companies

Tech companies in Philadelphia might finally see some long-awaited light at the end of the tax tunnel.

Mayor Michael Nutter has announced tax breaks for technology, design and video game firms that would hopefully encourage more companies to set up shop in the city.

As the Metro reported this morning, under the new tax policy, tech sector businesses would not be taxed for services sold outside of Philadelphia, which could pave the way for tax overhauls for all city businesses. The news follows Nutter’s address to the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce last week outlining the need to experiment with the city’s tax structure.

Videogame Growth Initiative organizer Mike Worth, who’s helped lead a grass roots effort to lobby City Hall on tech tax issues, as we’ve reported, tells Metro that the incentives might help convince his game development studio Space Whale Studios to move downtown.

Nutter to Chamber: experiment with city biz taxes, retain tech firms

Comcast Exec. VP David Cohen, after introducing Mayor Michael Nutter. Photo by Rikard Larma for Metro

Life sciences, engineering, computer system design firms and the video game industry were among the members of the region’s creative economies whose fates were addressed during Mayor Michael Nutter’s address to the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce this week.

Those mentions, in addition to the rest of his speech, focused on the economy, noting that job creation is a top priority of the coming year and outlining an experimentation with the city’s tax structure. He also warned of another tight budget and tough economic year.

“When I took office one of my top priorities was to transform the way that city government interacts with business, to encourage investment and development, rather than chase it away,” Nutter said. “Now, with many Philadelphians out of work and small businesses struggling to survive, creating jobs and encouraging investment is no longer one of my top priorities, it is my top priority.”

Below, listen to Nutter’s speech.

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Friday Q&A: Councilman Bill Green talks technology and Philly Charter

Early this week, Councilman Bill Green and five members of City Council introduced legislation that would change Philadelphia’s Charter to include a permanent Chief Information Officer.

As we reported, the bill would continue consolidation of the city’s Information Technology resources and it would require that the CIO develop annually a 5-year technology strategy, among other changes.

We spoke with Green on Monday to put into perspective the reason for the legislation—and whether or not the bill represents concern for current Chief Technology Officer Allan Frank’s leadership. Green’s answers, after the jump.

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City Council bill would make IT permanent part of city government

Councilman Bill Green and five members of City Council have co-sponsored legisilation that would create a permanent Charter position for a Chief Information Officer and would consolidate all of the city’s Information Technology resources under the Division of Technology.

The legislation would require the CIO to report directly to the Mayor and to create an annual IT strategic plan that includes productivity enhancements to help the city utilize paperless services. It also gives the CIO more oversight over city department technology appropriations.

“When they wrote the Charter in 1952, no one imagined there could be a paperless system,” Green told Technically Philly during a telephone interview this morning. “[The legislation would] make investment in and continual upgrade of our technology a permanent part of city government.”

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Economy League of Greater Philadelphia Turns 100

Click to enlarge.

In 1939, the City of Philadelphia was in a financial pinch. Some were clamoring for the city to privatize its gas works, because natural gas as an energy was in decline and the capital could finally right City Hall’s ship. Of course, there’s a good chance natural gas heats your home today, the city is once again in financial straits and people still talk about privatizing utilities.

That reality is something the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia, the nonpartisan policy nonprofit, seemed to know even then, as it offered a report calling ideas to sell the utility “unwarranted.”

It was one in a century-long history of involvement in public affairs by offering analysis of the region’s issues of the day.

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CBS stations launch 24-hour news ticker on Center City newsstands

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter was on hand Nov. 24, 2009 to introduce a partnership between the region's seven CBS stations and the city's newsstand association to run a ticker. Photo by Amy Stoller for Technically Philly.

Newsstand Association of Philadelphia, meet the region’s seven CBS stations.

Mayor Nutter was on hand Tuesday morning to announce a partnership that will feed news, weather and sports updates from CBS-owned radio and TV outlets onto 24-hour news tickers and flat-screen, high definition televisions outside Center City newsstands, according to a press release.

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Will Free Library technology get dumped?

More than 800 computer terminals, 167 printers and 54 fiber broadband connections, which account for 1.3 million annual computer reservations at the Free Library of Philadelphia, could soon be covered in dust.

Red signs threatening the Oct. 2 closure of the regional library system were hard to spot as patrons checked email, printed documents and watched YouTube videos in a computer lab in the east wing of the historic Central Library on Vine Street Tuesday afternoon.

As the city awaits legislators in Harrisburg to pass House Bill 1828—which would allow the city to increase local sales tax and defer pension contributions—threats of severe city-wide budget cuts in Mayor Michael Nutter’s “Plan C” doomsday budget are more real than ever; they’re printed on placards throughout 54 Free Library branches in the city.

City services could see $700 million in cuts, including Philadelphia’s library system, which faces a $29.6 million reduction and the loss of 490 positions.

Free Library Chief Technology Officer and executive staff member Jim Pecora says that a closure could severely affect patrons who need Internet access.

“This city and state budget situation will throw us back to the stone-ages if SB 1828 isn’t passed,” he said in a candid e-mail to Technically Philly.

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Friday Q&A: Kelly Lee, Innovation Philadelphia President & CEO

Updated 9/11/09, 2:15 p.m.: Clarified summit tracks, noted “no frills” package clarification, and updated Philly panelists.

If it wasn’t for the first Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit in June 2006, Innovation Philadelphia may not have found it’s niche in the creative industries.

President and CEO Kelly Lee says that it was the attendees of the inaugural event, hosted three years ago, who inspired the economic development organization to shift focus from the broad spectrum of technology-based businesses to creative ones—art, design, web development, and others, in place of biotech and life sciences.

This year, Lee is spearheading the second of the summits, the well-marketed and polished 2009 Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit, which happens next month, October 5 to 6 at the Philadelphia Convention Center. [Full Disclosure: Technically Philly is a panelist for GCECS2009, "Creating a Culture of Entrepreneurial Journalism" on Oct. 6]

The summit focuses on economics, entrepreneurship, workforce, technologies and sustainability, five interdependent tracks that Lee says make up the creative economy and that cities and regions need to have a strategy for.

There are dozens of workshops, panels, roundtables and presentations that include innovators and leaders from across the globe and the Philly region, like keynotes from author Elizabeth Gilbert, entrepreneur Peter Shankman, game guru Jane McGonigal and global economic developer Randall Kempner.

From flyer to Web design, packed-schedule to text message update technology, there’s little doubt that the nonprofit has invested quite a bit in this year’s summit. The organization has even launched a series of glossy, high-def videos on the conference website this week that features local entrepreneurs and policy-makers who will attend. It certainly doesn’t appear that Innovation Philadelphia is taking GCECS2009 lightly.

But critics aren’t taking their words lightly, either, including high-profile members of our business and technology communities.

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