Nutter? I Don't Even Know 'er!: Michael Gets to Work

Last Friday & the Weekend: Michael must have had a low-key weekend, as the Nutter newswires were fairly quiet. He probably needed the rest, though, as he had a pretty hectic week last week, and it may only now be sinking in that he's the mayor.

Monday: Michael tapped Lori Shorr, (now-)former VP for policy and planning at Philadelphia Youth Network, to serve as his chief education adviser and help him get to work on his goal of halving the city's abysmal 45% dropout rate. Michael wouldn't confirm the appointment though, opting to play coy until he made the official announcement. He also found time to attend the swearing-in of Ronald Castille as Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Tuesday: Michael considered axing Philadelphia's ridiculous residency requirement for EMTs to help alleviate the city's paramedic shortage. I guess we'll throw that on the crisis pile along with crime and the dropout rate.

Wednesday: Michael's crisis pile is getting pretty large. Wednesday's addition was the city budget, as it was revealed that Michael's city Financial Director, Rob Dubow, sent a memo on January 8 instructing every city department and agency to develop plans to cut their budgets for the next fiscal year by three to five percent. Dubow said Michael's administration doesn't want to cut services; it just wants the government to be more cost-efficient.

Thursday: Michael's top administration officials will be banking more in salary than the mayor himself. It's one of those funny things about politics, we guess, that the nuts and bolts agencies are being asked to cut their budgets by up to 5%, while city department heads' annual salaries will total $1.7 million – about the same as what former Mayor Street's officials made. Also, Michael gave former Mayor Street's appointees to the Zoning Board their pink slips and replaced them with his own picks. Shall we start taking bets on when they'll re-zone the proposed casino sites as non-commercial?

Image via flickr user smiley_river.