Results tagged “budget2010”

After all the huffing and puffing earlier this week over the new tax rollback, the Cook County Board still managed to pass its 2010 budget yesterday and there were no new taxes included. The budget, valued at $3 billion, does include that new half-percent tax rollback - from 1.75 percent to 1.25 percent. Though the battle over the veto and override still hovers on the horizon.

Today, the City Council is slated to finish up hearings pertaining to Mayor Daley's 2010 budget as they prepare to send the budget to the whole Council for discussion next week. The Law Department will be the last to participate in the hearings and then we can get ready for a whole lot of...well, who knows? There's a historically huge budget gap - $520 million by WBEZ's count - that the City is looking to close. We've already heard Mayor Daley's plan, including major cuts to tourism, arts and events, furlough days, and even the city's recycling program. What remains to be seen is how much noise some of the city's aldermen - notably aldermen like Manny Flores and Scott Waguespack - make, especially in regards to Daley's plan to raid the money from the Parking Meter deal (Heaven forbid he touches any of the money in the city's large TIF funds). Ald. Waguespack said a few weeks ago, "If the parking meter money is depleted within five years, then what happens for the next 70 years of that contract?" Of course, our cynical side suspects that those offering resistance will be outnumbered by those willing to be the Mayor's rubber stamp.

We mentioned yesterday morning the deal struck between the RTA and the state of Illinois which would provide enough funding to prevent a fare hike at the CTA for the next two years but wouldn't prevent the $90 million in service cuts originally proposed by the CTA. At a press conference yesterday, we got some of the details of the deal. Well, "deal" is a loose term as you'll see. The move isn't so much eliminating the CTA's debt as it is slightly reducing and really prolonging it. The Tribune breaks down the deal like so:

Yesterday evening, news broke of a deal between the RTA and Gov. Quinn providing funding so that the CTA could avoid fare hikes through 2011. Details of the deal haven't been announced - Quinn is expected to outline those in an afternoon press conference - but Greg Hinz at Crain's reports:

Following up (finally) on 47th Ward Ald. Eugene Schulter's complaint that suburbanites are claiming the best seats at Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, Mayor Daley lashed out at those who are ungrateful for the benevolent contributions that suburban corporate benefactors have made to build Millennium Park. "Remember, people gave money [to build Millennium Park] who lived throughout the metropolitan area - business leaders. And if you look at many of them, they lived in suburban areas. They should have never given," Daley said Monday. "We have free concerts there. First come, first served. People show up early. I mean - they show up REAL early. So, it's first come, first served," the Mayor told the Sun-Times. "It's a wonderful program. Of course, they [also] have the Grant Park concerts. That goes on."

With a massive budget deficit looming, property taxes on the rise, and the mayor talking about more furloughs and service cuts, the Chicago Public Schools have still found over $150,000 to hire a city hall insider to handle "forging partnerships with the business community to support school programs," the Sun-Times is reporting. Better yet, the hire is Barbara Lumpkin, who has served as Daley's city comptroller, budget director and city treasurer, and who was involved in several city hall scandals during her previous tenure.

With the city hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, fewer police on the street to battle crime, and a transit system on the verge of another round of service cuts and fare hikes, the City Council is tackling the tough issue plaguing our city: suburbanites claiming the best seats at Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. During the Council's budget hearings yesterday, it was Ald. Eugene Schulter (47th) who spoke up, according to the Sun-Times. Said Ald. Schulter:

Mayor Daley's Environment Commissioner Suzanne Malec-Mckenna told the press yesterday that she would accept a one-day suspension for alleged hiring abuses related to a contractor in her department. The city inspector general recommended the suspension, as well as the firing of one of her deputies, who is accused of lying to investigators about the matter. “If that’s the recommendation, I’ll take the recommendation,” Malec-McKenna said Monday.

With 2,000 layoffs being included in the CTA's dreaded 2010 budget, leaders for the CTA bus drivers' union are contemplating a strike to fight the proposed cutbacks. Local 241 of the Amalgamated Transit Union is threatening to not only strike to protest the cutbacks and promised raises made in a 2007 deal, but is claiming that the CTA's current budget gap is closer to $500 million, far larger than the CTA claims. Darrell Jefferson, President ATU Local 241, told CBS 2, "Metropolitan Transit Act says, in section 28, that management and exempt people should make up only 3 percent of the total number of employees. We estimate CTA being somewhere like 15 to 18 percent. Laying off people and you're still gonna be heavy in management, I think you're asking for a war more than a layoff."

27th Ward Alderman Walter Burnett thinks he's found a way to fox up neighborhoods, put people back to work, and help some Chicagoans find affordable housing. Burnett would like to put the more than $1 billion in TIF funds that the city is holding into building affordable housing. "You build the houses, people work, people get affordable housing, people pay taxes, money comes back to the city," Burnett told CBS2. Currently only about four percent of TIF monies go to affordable housing in the city. He'd like to see that number closer to 20 percent. "We need to do our own stimulus package," says Burnett.

With Mayor Daley's budget on the table and things looking grim financially for the next several years, it's natural to wonder what other city assets Daley will sale as he dips into the parking meter lease cash to help cover the 2010 budget gap. The Sun-Times Fran Spielman runs down for us what could very well be up for sale next, including another run at privatizing Midway. Daley's tried to do it before. The 99-year, $2.5 billion deal was set up by the mayor and approved by the City Council, but the deal floundered as the economy did. Another run at this deal with any number of companies wouldn't be a surprise. Spielman suggests he could also try to do the same kind of deal with O'Hare, which would bring in even more money, but roadblocks could drag out such an attempt.

Cook County Board President and local punchline Todd "The Toddler" Stroger is taking a page out of Mayor Daley's political playbook: holding the line on taxes. In a speech to county commissioners this week, Stroger touted his proposed $3 billion budget as maintaining the same level of service without raising taxes. "The executive budget I place before you is balanced, no delays of payment cycles, no long term borrowing to fund operations, no use of reserve funds to pay our bills. Likewise my budget plan for 2010 includes no new taxes, none," Stroger said. "Today, as our national and state governments face terrible deficits, and as many local governments in Illinois find themselves in dire financial shape, Cook County is relatively strong," he said. The proposed budget will actually increase spending by about $80 million, nearly four percent. Those costs include covering previously unmet obligations to employee pension funds, an increase of $35 million to the county sheriff's office, and $22 million in employ pay increases.

Mayor Daley's budget for 2010 has been presented and, as expected, there were no new taxes but lots of cuts. There will also be much taken from the parking meter lease fund. In fact, by this time next year, don't expect much to be left from the $1.15 billion/75-year deal, the deal we may have gotten hosed on. Having already spent $400 million of that money this year, according to the Tribune, Daley is looking to spend an additional $600 million of that money in 2010. We're no math geniuses and even we know that doesn't leave a whole heck of a lot left in the pot for the remaining 70+ years of the lease, something that concerned Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) earlier this week. All told, Daley claims that there will still be around $700 million left in reserve funds - the combination of the Skyway and parking meter leases - next year. A cut in the city's tourism budget also raised eyebrows. And besides the cuts to entertainment and furlough days for non-union employees and elimination of vacant jobs, there are smaller cuts, too, such as the scaling back of the city's recycling program.

We're a short time away from hearing all about Mayor Daley's budget for 2010 - hint: it won't be pretty! - and Daley continues to slash at the budget like Jason Voorhees so that he can avoid raising taxes to help fill a budget gap in the neighborhood of $500 million. Items have been trickling out in the days ahead of his presentation to the City Council and now we've got a clearer idea of what's going to be cut. We already know that the city's non-union workers will be asked to take nearly five work weeks worth of furlough days (24 to be exact), that there will be no cost of living increases in wages, and at least three more reduced services days. Daley has also suggested that while money from the Skyway lease will remain untouched, he could borrow heavily from the parking meter lease to help cover the budget gap.