The most notable thing about Mayor Cherelle Parker’s new budget proposal for fiscal year 2027 may be how little the overall number changed. Overall spending for the City’s General Fund totals nearly $7 billion, but is only about $125 million more than the adopted budget from last fiscal year. That corresponds to about a 2 percent increase, much smaller than the jump in last year’s budget cycle ($475 million, or 7.5 percent).
The General Fund is the City’s main operating budget. It pays for the basic functions of local government, including police and fire protection, trash collection, parks, libraries, and many other day-to-day services. It also shows where Mayor Parker is directing new money, and where spending is rising because of obligations the City has limited ability to avoid.
This tension is one of the main stories in this year’s budget. Some of the costs that continue to rise are familiar ones, including employee fringe benefits, debt service, utilities, rent, and wage increases tied to labor contracts. But the overall increase was held down in part because some large FY26 costs were temporary and are no longer in the budget, including funding reserves for expiring labor contracts and spending for the City’s 2026 special events like the World Cup and America’s 250th birthday celebration. The end result is a budget that looks relatively steady at the top but has several sub-categories moving in different directions.
City Council is in the process of holding budget hearings with each department head about the budget requests — and hearing from citizens about what they want to see funded (or not). Council must approve a budget in time for the start of fiscal year 2027 on July 1, 2026.
To see where this year’s budget changed, we broke the budget into major categories, divided those totals by Philadelphia’s population, and compared the proposed FY27 per-person amounts with those in the adopted FY26 budget. After the chart below, we provide some of the main highlights from this year’s budget.
Here are some of the most substantial takeaways:
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- Fixed costs continue to dominate: As in past years, a sizable share of the budget is shaped by costs the City is already committed to paying, including fringe benefits, debt service, and utilities and rent payments. Each of these spending categories increased between 6 and 8 percent in the proposal, adding a total $66 per-person to this year’s budget.
- One-time costs falling away: Part of the reason the overall increase is smaller this year is that some large FY26 costs did not carry over into FY27. That includes a $26 per-person drop in Finance Department spending tied to the City’s 2026 special events, along with a $39 per-person decline in one-time reserve funding that had been set aside to cover the expected cost of labor contracts expiring at the end of FY25.
- Police wage increases: With rising fixed costs offset in part by the end of some one-time FY26 spending, one of the clearest remaining increases, totaling $39 per-person, is in the Police Department. This increase is due nearly entirely to salary increases tied to the new labor contract that was signed in August 2025.
- New Fire equipment: The Fire Department would receive an $11 per-person budget increase in the FY27 proposal, primarily due to one-time equipment spending for self-contained breathing apparatuses.
- Arts & Culture cuts: The FY27 proposal cuts the City’s arts and culture spending by nearly 30 percent, due to cuts to the City’s contribution to the Philadelphia Cultural Fund.
- Economic stimulus spending remains high: Spending on economic stimulus increased dramatically in last year’s budget, from $21 per-person to $64 per-person, and despite a small decrease, remains elevated in this year’s proposal at $57 per-person. Much of the increase is due to the City’s Jump Start Philly program, which is designed to reduce tax liability for small businesses.
Sources: City of Philadelphia FY 2027 Budget in Brief and Adopted FY 2026 Budget in Brief.
Figures represent proposed funding in fiscal year 2027 for the City of Philadelphia’s General Fund budget, adjusted for population using the latest available data. Per-person spending totals are compared to the adopted General Fund budget for fiscal year 2026. Funding for the Early Childhood Education program was separated from the budget for the Department of Human Services and categorized separately.
Nick Hand is a data scientist and public sector technologist. He was director of the City Controller’s Finance, Policy and Data unit during Rebecca Rhynhart’s tenure.
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