How the City of Philadelphia spends $3.5 billion annually: 10 best charts and graphs

How the City of Philadelphia spends $3.5 billion annually should be better visualized online, we say.

The state-empowered Philadelphia Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority (PICA), which is chaired by investor and former mayoral candidate Sam Katz, released in November a citizen’s guide to the City of Philadelphia General Fund that was full of visualizations — all buried in a PDF.

While we shared the document a few weeks ago, after seeing it on PhillyDeals, it seems that it all passed with too little fanfare. While we at Technically Philly would love to work with PICA to develop a friendlier, more interactive web version of this project, we thought we’d start by sharing our 10 favorite of the many charts and graphs detailing where the city government gets its money and how it’s spent.

In addition to the one above, see our 10 favorites below.

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How business privilege tax reform in Philadelphia helps: Philadelphia Business Journal

The Philadelphia Business Journal reports on the broader impact of the City Council tax reform legislation that Technically Philly first reported on:

If you are wondering which businesses could benefit the most from business privilege tax (BPT) reform measures passed by City Council Thursday, think small. As in small businesses.

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Play Eternal waiting on major release to become first AAA video game studio in Philadelphia, VGI update

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods program, the capstone class for the Temple’s Department of Journalism.

Mike Worth and Lou Tranchitella realized the need for a big-budget video game studio in Philadelphia, and in February, co-founded Play Eternal.

Now they’re just waiting for their big break.

The duo, along with more than a dozen other members of their team, have a prototype in the hands of major publishers to fund what could be on Xbox Live Arcade or the Sony Playstation Network. If that, or another of a handful of major projects come through, a nearly three year effort to build out the city’s video game development culture will reach another height.

There are steps to go, but the movement has inched forward since early 2009.

With the growth of Worth’s Videogame Growth Initiative movement and a local technology community here, along with excellent video game development programs at Drexel and Penn, the absence of a “Hollywood-level quality” shop, called a AAA studio, seemed unwarranted to Worth and Tranchitella.

“There are studios in lots of different states, there’s no reason for it not to happen here. Philadelphia seemed like a great place to do this,” Tranchitella said. “The technology is here.”

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Tax reform legislation passes City Council committee, would exempt first $100k in city business receipts

City Council chambers. Photo by Albert Yee.

A bill that would make changes to the City of Philadelphia’s tax structure was approved Monday by City Council’s Committee on Finance, as the Daily News reported. If passed by Council, the measure would be phased into practice during a three-year period starting in fiscal year 2015.

The bill, introduced by Council members Bill Green and Maria Quiñones Sanchez, as discussed in our Q&A with her Friday, would exempt the first $100,000 in business receipts from both the gross and net income portions, a move aimed at startups and small businesses based in the city.

“This represents a higher tax reduction than [other] plans for a gross receipts reduction,” Sanchez told Technically Philly.

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Maria Quiñones Sanchez: Q&A with councilwoman on tax reform, digital divide and redistricting [VIDEO]

Two and a half weeks before Election Day, freshman Councilwoman Maria Quiñones Sanchez has effectively already earned a second term.

After soundly beating challenger Dan Savage, who held the seat and lost it to Sanchez,  in an at times bitter primary, the Inquirer-endorsed Sanchez is running unopposed in the general campaign for the seventh council district.

So now she can focus a bit more on her legislative work.

Representing largely poor and blighted neighborhoods like Kensington and portions of North Philadelphia up to Frankford at the foothills of the Northeast, Quiñones Sanchez has taken an interest in digital divide issues and tax reform policy to try to retain what manufacturing remains in the broken heart of the Workshop of the World.

The first Latina on council, Quiñones Sanchez, 42, was born in Puerto Rico but raised in Hunting Park and now lives in Norris Square with her husband and two sons. A Mastbaum High School and Lincoln University alumnae, she worked for council members, including former at-large Councilman Angel Ortiz, and is credited with having brought life back to Latino education-advocacy group Aspira, along with leading other Hispanic-focused community organizations.

In 1999, she lost to incumbent City Councilman Rick Mariano but after he went to federal prison in 2006 and Savage was chosen by ward leaders to replace him, she beat him in the 2007 primary. Full bio here [.doc].

Below, Technically Philly speaks to Quiñones Sanchez about taxes, computer literacy and how city data helped clean up her district.

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Penn Executive Vice President Craig R. Carnaroli talks development, taxes and tech

Edited, July 4, 2011, 10:08 a.m.: Carnaroli was elected on June 10, not during the third week of June.

We’re not sure when Craig Carnaroli sleeps.

He’s Executive Vice President of the University of Pennsylvania, he’s Chair of the University City District and he serves on the boards of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, Penn Medicine, and The Connelly Foundation.

Whatever free time he might have had will be partially eaten up by his new role as Chairman of the Board of the University City Science Center, after being elected to the position on June 10.

Now, the Wharton alum says that he’s leveraging his roles to strengthen Penn’s relationship to the rest of University City, and helping to create connections across the various institutions.

And a big part of that connection is physical. Carnaroli led the development of Penn Connects master plan, which he says will help bring together the institutions through the built environment of University City and West Philadelphia, with initiatives like Penn Park.

We spoke to Carnaroli by phone to talk about how the built environment can ultimately impact Philadelphia’s technology community, and more, after the jump.

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Philadelphia business taxes, a complete digest [chart]

Our friends at It’s Our Money compiled the taxes and fees that Mayor Michael Nutter could raise.

CLICK THROUGH TO SEE THE FULL LIST OF PHILADELPHIA TAXES

‘Blogger tax:’ bill creating business privilege license exemption for ‘hobbies’ faces City Council vote [VIDEO]

Mike Lyons, who runs the blog West Philly Local, sits on a bench at Locust and 40th streets.

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods Program, the capstone class for the Temple Journalism Department.

Mike Lyons and his wife run West Philly Local, a blog that covers news in West Philadelphia.

His site has been up for just three months and gets a modest 800 to 900 unique visitors a day. Although Lyons hopes to monetize the site in the future, it has yet to make any profit.

For bloggers like Lyons, the year-long dispute concerning the city’s so-called ‘blogger tax’ has caused a great deal of confusion.

But new legislation introduced by Councilman Bill Green could keep Lyons and other hobbyists, including bloggers, from being required to apply and pay for a city business privilege license.

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‘Global Water Industry Honor Roll’ features two Philly companies: Links

• Navy, economic development groups sign pact [PhillyBurbs.com] — “The U.S. Navy has formed a partnership with three business development groups to foster collaboration with small businesses, educational institutions and nonprofit groups and increase energy-related developments at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.”
• Q&A with Mark Alan Hughes [Flying Kite] The Penn State Professor leading the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster, also located at the Navy Yard
• Two Philly Firms Named to Global Water Industry Honor Roll [Keystone Edge] — BlackGold Biofuels and NovaThermal Energy were named to the Top 50 Water Companies list
• ‘Blogger tax’ goes before council [Metro] — We’ll have more details next week
• Philadelphia Water Department to adopt water infrastructure capital planning software [Water World]
• Philadelphia’s Greatest And Most Anticipated Food Website Coming Soon [Phoodie] — “Tacodelphia“
• Many could be interested in Cubist [Business Journal]

Comcast asks FCC to keep Hulu info secret: Roundup

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscri ption for our Comcast news updates.

• Comcast to FCC: Keep Hulu info secret [Politico] — “According to a letter placed in the commission’s public file on Wednesday, the company contends that a document it will soon file with the FCC detailing its deal with the Internet site that shows NBC and other network programming is too sensitive for the public to see.”
• Comcast Has Been To My House 12 Times, Still No Cable [Consumerist]
• Comcast tops in adding broadband subs [Fierce Cable] — “…Comcast more than doubled its nearest competitor, AT&T, by adding one million net broadband customers over the course of the last year.”
• Comcast Begins Effort to Launch 10 Independent Networks [Comcast blog] — A call to support 10 ethnic and racially diverse  stations
• 5 Ways GE Plays the Tax Game [ProPublica] — How the deal with Comcast for NBC affects