(2 of 2)
Budget Deficit. Rizzo is also losing support because of his inept handling of the city's fiscal crisis. In his first term, he increased the number of city employees by nearly 12%, and most of the 3,787 jobs he created were patronage positions. In 1975 he granted 20,000 city workers a 12.8% pay hike, while insisting that Philadelphia had no financial problems. Yet one momth after beginning his second term, Rizzo discovered a budget deficit of $80 million and proclaimed a "fiscal emergency." Since then he has asked for 20% increases in city payroll taxes, boosts of up to 50% in real estate taxes, and a raise in transit fares from 350 to 500. He has urged layoffs of 500 to 1,000 city employees.
The proposals have hurt Rizzo most among members of his own working-class constituency, who stand to bear the heaviest tax burden. The mayor has survived earlier furors—including those raised by journalistic investigations into spending for improvements on his house and his use of city police to hector political opponents. But this one may well frustrate his long-held ambition to become Governor of Pennsylvania.