Parking Authority says Dems blocking school $

Top officials of the Philadelphia Parking Authority - including Republican mayoral candidate Al Taubenberger - did their best yesterday to blame Democrats for the paltry support that the Republican-controlled parking agency has been providing to the city's public schools.

Taubenberger and the authority's chairman, painters' union leader Joseph Ashdale, said they'd be happy to send more money to the school district if they could get out of a profit-sharing agreement that requires them to pay the city $25 million in any given year before the schools get a dime.

The Republicans claimed that the agreement had been forced on them in 2004 by Gov. Rendell and Mayor Street. In fact, Republican leaders went along with the plan as a way to keep the Parking Authority under GOP control, when the city was threatening to cancel all the legal agreements that kept the Parking Authority in business.

Since Perzel staged a coup in 2001 to stack the Parking Authority with Republican board members, its payroll has doubled to more than 1,000 patronage jobs, and top salaries have soared, the Daily News reported yesterday.

It now has 20 people making more than $100,000 a year, and its top executive, Republican ward leader Vincent J. Fenerty Jr., makes $194,500 - more than anyone on the city payroll and $50,000 more than Mayor Street.

Although the Republican takeover was supposed to send more money to the district, since 2004 the authority has provided it with only $4 million. Even the 2004 payment was an anomaly, Ashdale indicated yesterday - the result of some unusual bookkeeping that is unlikely to happen again.

"We want to help the school district, but we're barred by legislation in many ways," Taubenber-ger told reporters yesterday. " . . . Anytime you can help and have more aid to the school district, we're all well-served. But there are some legislative hurdles that have to be overcome and they were put in by the current mayor and the current governor."

Ashdale said he hoped to meet with the next mayor, "whether it's Michael [Nutter] or Al," to consider changing the distribution of authority money so more can go for schools.

After brief exchanges with reporters, Ashdale and Taubenberger hustled away from the Parking Authority's monthly meeting yesterday, avoiding any detailed questions about the authority's spending.

Figures provided by the authority show its revenues have climbed 83 percent since 2001, from $107 million to $197 million. But its expenses have climbed almost as quickly, leaving annual profits essentially unchanged, taking inflation into account.

From 1998 through 2001, its last four fiscal years under Democratic control, the agency provided the city with an average of $15.2 million a year. Over the past six years, under Republican control, it has turned over an average of $18.8 million annually, including the $4 million sent to the school district in 2004.

Asked by reporters if the authority's board ever considered cutting expenses to provide more money for the city or the schools, Taubenberger said, "We take a look all the time at subjects like that, and we need constantly to look at that."

Asked to justify the agency's salary levels, Taubenberger said, "It has to be studied . . . Take a look at the success we've had as well . . . We have consistently raised more money than the previous administration has ever done."

Representatives of parent groups, including Parents United for Public Schools and the Philadelphia Home & School Council, asked the authority board to commit $20 million to the district from its profits on Rittenhouse Square real estate purchased for a parking-garage project that was abandoned.

Authority spokeswoman Linda Miller said legal and financial consultants are still working to wrap up the real-estate deal and pay off the bonds that financed it. It remains unclear, she said, how much money will be left over for other purposes and what options there will be to spend it on. *