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Alan Butkovitz, City Controller

Alan Butkovitz was first elected Philadelphia City Controller in 2005. Since that time, he has been the City’s chief fiscal watchdog - emphasizing performance audits to save money and generate revenue, while recommending ways for the City to operate more efficiently and effectively. His investigations and audits have found more than $400 million in potential revenues and savings for Philadelphia taxpayers.

The opportunity for the City to realize millions of dollars was reported in Butkovitz's Potential Savings & Uncollected Revenue review. Some of the findings presented in the report that the City has failed to act on include:
• Uncollected court fines and fees amounting to a one-time collection of almost $70 million,
• Failure to properly bill by the Licenses & Inspections Department for demolition services amounting to an annual savings of $20 million,
• Not increasing EMS collections as well as increasing ALS services by $150 for an annual savings of $46 million.
• Failure to adopt a policy for depositing tax payments within a timely manner amounting to an annual savings of $1 million.

Prior to being the City Controller, Butkovitz served 15 years in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives where he acquired a reputation for hard work, independence and innovative ideas. As a freshman lawmaker in 1991, Butkovitz led the fight against his own party’s leaders to successfully repeal a tax that required senior citizens to include social security, pensions and veteran’s benefits as taxable income.

It was Butkovitz’s proposal to create harsher penalties for drunk drivers who kill that became law and mandates ten year prison terms for any drunk driver who causes an automobile accident that results in a death.

Butkovitz was also widely praised for leading a three-year bipartisan investigation into violence in Philadelphia public schools. He authored legislation creating the Office of the Safe School Advocate, the first of its kind in the nation with the authority to fight for victims of school violence and monitor the School District of Philadelphia’s compliance with the Safe Schools Act.

Alan Butkovitz was born and raised in Philadelphia. He is a graduate of Overbrook High School, Temple University and Temple University School of Law. He is an attorney who lives in Northeast Philadelphia with his wife Theresa and their two children Rachel and Edward, who both attend Temple University School of Law.