68,000,000: Dollars that could hire 170 new Philadelphia police officers for five years, or 850 officers for one year, based on official estimates of $80,000 a cop for salary, benefits and training.
68,000,000: Dollars that could almost completely close the current yawning budget gap currently faced by the Philadelphia School District, estimated now at $73.3 million. The gap has led to a series of painful cutbacks, such as the elimination of 175 administrative jobs.
68,000,000: Dollars that could hire roughly 124 new social workers for 10 years in city’s Department of Human Services (based on average city salary and benefits.) DHS has been under fire for its handling of several cases of alleged abuse or neglect in which children ultimately died.
68,000,000: Dollars that could buy a brand-new laptop computer for roughly one in three public school students in Philadelphia — 63,000 of them, based on the average price the district now pays for laptops of $1,080.
68,000,000: Dollars that could provide outpatient drug- or alcohol-abuse treatment for some 47,500 people, based on the average cost (from 2002 statistics) of $1,433 per episode.
ATTYTOOD: You’re A Foul One, Mr. Bunch!