[Illustration by ALEX FINE]
PHILLY CLOUT: One of the strange ironies we’ve noted in the budget process is that Philadelphia is currently poised to make massive citywide cuts at the same time the federal government is pledging to send the city millions of dollars as part of the $787 billion stimulus package. But here’s the rub. Nearly all the money coming from the feds is dedicated for very specific purposes and cannot go to general operating expenses. So if the city’s budget requests in 
Harrisburg don’t go as planned, and Mayor Nutter implements his “Plan C” doomsday budget, then the city will start laying people off, while spending millions on street repaving and airport improvements. MORE
RELATED: As [Mayor Nutter] stood yesterday near a Northeast Philadelphia police building, reiterating the massive police layoffs the state might force upon him, there was no sign of relief from Harrisburg as Pennsylvania’s budget standoff dragged on. The Republican leader of the Senate, Dominic Pileggi of Delaware County, said yesterday that he had told Nutter that the state must come to agreement on a 2010 budget before considering Philadelphia’s requests. […] Without the state’s consent, Nutter said, he will be forced to make $700 million in spending cuts in the next five years – cuts that would include the elimination of 3,000 city jobs, nearly a third of them in the Police Department. The cuts, part of the administration’s “Plan C,” also would have about 200 firefighters lose their jobs. MORE
UNRELATED: Surveillance photos have exposed a man who burgled in the buff, Abington Township police said yesterday. Police are working to uncover the identity of a 30- to 40-year-old man who they said broke into an apartment complex on Old York Road near Hamilton Avenue at about 4:45 p.m. on Friday. “There’s a photo of him going in dressed in shorts and a T-shirt,” Abington detective Phil Geliebter said. The bandit then rifled through the dresser of a female resident, scattering her clothes, and at some point stripped down to his birthday suit, Geliebter said. He then went on a mean streak, breaking several pieces of furniture and taking a laptop before surveillance video in the hallway caught him fleeing while holding his clothes, Geliebter said. MORE
PREVIOUSLY: Prosecutors described 41-year-old former US marine Stanley Heiserman’s exploits as “simply nuts.” They said he decided to rob stores in and around Allentown in Pennsylvania in the nude because during previous crimes he had been fully dressed and had been identified by his clothing. He raided one store twice in the space of a day and got away with $400. Cashiers said he was stark naked both times apart from the underwear on his head. MORE