Entries associated with the tag "Budget Deficit":

When they take it up for a vote Wednesday, expect aldermen to kvetch about the 2009 budget even as they pass it--and by a large margin.

Nothing new there. In fact, it's another reason why the City Council is so ill-equipped to fight for major budget revisions: there's no structure or precedent for it. Aldermen simply don't carry much weight on the budget, even though oversight of it is arguably their most important oversight legislative job.

A year ago, when the economy was showing signs of a slowdown, the council signed off on the mayor's 2008 budget, with its millions in tax and spending increases, by a 37-13 vote. (A separate ordinance specifying the tax hikes generated more resistance but still passed 29-21.) That amounted to the most opposition to a Daley budget in 16 years, since the still-new mayor had to fight for 30-18 passage of his 1992 plan. Starting in 1993 (when the 1994 budget was passed), the council went 14 straight years without more than four votes against an administration budget; in seven of those years, the votes were unanimous. Were all of the budgets sound, fair, and just what the city needed? Aldermen said so.

A few aldermen do take pride in shouting out nay at budget time. The alderman with the most no votes under Richard M. Daley is the 46th Ward's Helen Shiller, but she hasn't uttered anything but aye for almost a decade now. In the past few years it's been Toni Preckwinkle of the Fourth Ward who's been the mayor's leading annoyance.

In case you're as geeky about such things as some of the rest of us, here ya go: This chart shows how the votes have gone down every year since this Daley has been mayor. (Again, the budget is always voted on at the end of the previous year. The 1990 budget, in other words, was approved at the end of 1989. DNV=Did Not Vote, for whatever reason.)

The city government has long viewed all instances of graffiti as a scourge, a sign of neighborhood deterioration that lowers property values and emboldens more serious criminals—a classic example of the broken windows theory. And aldermen and business and community leaders have generally been big supporters of the Daley administration’s Graffiti Blasters program, which for the last 15 years has dispatched city workers around the city to remove tags from public and private property at no cost to the owner.

But over the last couple months I’ve seen more graffiti in more places around the city than I’ve noticed in years—on the doorways of businesses on the northwest and southwest sides, on garage doors up north, and especially high on the walls of property along the Red Line (which is where I took the pictures above). Some of it was eventually blasted away or painted over, but in many cases not for several weeks.

It’s no secret that the city is facing major budget problems, and since summer some departments have been paring staff and slowing service delivery. The administration’s 2009 budget calls for more of both. But Matt Smith, the spokesman for the Department of Streets and Sanitation, said the Graffiti Blasters program hasn’t been affected.

Through the end of October, Smith said, crews had erased or covered 144,956 patches of graffiti this year, up from 128,845 over the same period in 2007. “Our workers are keeping very busy,” he said. “There have been no slowdowns with graffiti.”

Unless something changes before the city council votes Wednesday on the 2009 budget, the program will have to carry on with less funding next year—$5.6 million, down 28 percent from the $7.8 million allocated for 2008. Most of the savings comes from slicing 14 staff positions.

Still, Smith insists that the program won’t have to reduce its workload because many of the cut jobs were either vacant or held by employees on leave who aren’t returning. “The effect should be negligible,” he said. “We’re not losing someone who’s out there on the street.”

According to the 2009 budget proposal, though, the cuts include seven laborers. And if Smith's overall assessment is right, it raises the question of why we we've been paying millions more for the program than needed. "We're realizing we can get the job done with the people we have [on the job] now," Smith said.

Incidentally, it’s not the only division of Streets and San that’s likely to get less money. The budget for the Bureau of Rodent Control is slated to be reduced 17 percent, and the Bureau of Santitation—i.e., garbage collection—will be sliced 14 percent.

In a press conference Wednesday, Mayor Daley announced that the city, state, and feds, with help from corporate and nonprofit donors, had come up with more than $100 million in assistance for people who’ll need help covering and reducing heating bills this winter.

But he also said that several business leaders had recently told him they were planning major layoffs over the coming months. "If everything goes we’ll be close to a depression," Daley said. "That’s a frightening word to say, but we’ve been in a recession. Washington doesn’t want to admit we’re in a recession, I don’t know why, but everything’s collapsing."

Businesses and governments across the country are struggling to figure out how to pay their bills, Daley noted, making his point with an extended metaphor that ended up sounding like he was wishing he could sail away from it all. "I think everybody’s in the same boat. No one’s outside the boat. Everyone’s in the boat—that’s one thing they are. Your industry, government, everybody—except the federal government. They print money."

With something of a cross between a sigh, a whine, and a boast, he added: "We have to balance our budget by law."

Daley wasn’t saying anything he and countless others hadn’t said before, but as always there was a political purpose behind his musings: he was telling the city, starting with its aldermen, that his team’s financial plans are as good as it gets; in these tough times, it’s important to come together and do as he says.

"No one’s happy," he said after being reminded that aldermen didn’t like his proposed layoffs or cuts in service and infrastructure. "No one’s happy."

The City Council had just finished a meeting called primarily to advance the Daley administration’s 2009 budget proposal so it could get a final council vote next Wednesday. That happened according to plan, but off the council floor some aldermen were vowing to … stay really pissed off about it.

Aldermen have been grumbling about the budget since it was introduced a few weeks ago. But few have come up with serious counterproposals, and not until the last few days did it really seem to sink in that, rotten economy or not, they’re going to be the ones who take a public beating if more people find their cars booted, their garbage piling up, or their alleys falling apart. The grousing turned to outright bitching when it became clear that cuts would also be imposed on aldermanic menu budgets—the $1.3 million pots of money each gets to spend on handpicked ward improvements. Suddenly the whole budgetary process became an issue of "respect," as longtime northwest-side boss Richard Mell put it earlier this week. And he didn’t seem any happier during the rather succinct exchange we had Wednesday.

MICK: So is the budget going forward now?

MELL: Who knows.

MICK: Have you gotten the respect you want?

MELL: No.

Not to worry—I found a few other aldermen who were more conversational in explaining that, yes, it's true, the whole thing’s really a pisser.  

"The economy is bad, and you don’t get all those amenities you want because the economy is so bad, but in the final analysis you’ve got to have a budget, and one of the responsibilities of the City Council is to produce a budget … and you do the best you can with what you’ve got," said 28th Ward alderman Ed Smith. "I’m hoping for the best, but I’m expecting the worst."

"First of all, we all know that next year’s just going to be worse—so where are the layoffs going to be?" wondered the Second Ward’s Bob Fioretti. "What will be the cuts? Are we then going to move into the TIF funding? We don’t have any other items that we can lease, so how are we going to move government along? We need to come up with a comprehensive analysis." He wisely wouldn’t swear this would happen in the next seven days.

Michael Zalewski, alderman of the 23rd Ward, said he and several other aldermen were going to get together Wednesday afternoon to talk about possibly raising the gas tax and finding ways to reduce layoffs. "We’re going to go brainstorm now," he said.

Not surprisingly, Mayor Daley’s proposals to lay off employees and reduce some city services—from trash pickup around the holidays to public health programming, community policing, and free jumping jacks—have been about as popular as Muslims at a McCain rally. The dire consequences of these cuts have made daily headlines.

So far, though, critics haven’t offered many concrete counterproposals—I’ve heard some talk about dipping into TIF funds, renegotiating some expensive contracts, reducing management-level staffing instead of front-line workers, and other “efficiencies” that arguably should have been considered to save taxpayers’ money well before the city’s deficit bulged to nearly $500 million.

It may not change the debate this year, but union leaders and some aldermen are getting louder in their charges that the city’s entire financing and budgetary process is broken—and at least as much to blame for the fix we’re in as downturns in the economy. Since the only set of budgetary data comes from a single source—an office whose employees report to the mayor—some critics say they’re not even sure they can accept the city’s deficit estimates.

“We don’t know the scope,” says Anders Lindall, a spokesman for AFSCME Council 31, which represents about 5,000 city workers. “The city claims it’s about $200 million this year and $300 million next—but we can’t say that’s the case. There’s not an open question that the city has a budget problem. But there’s a lack of transparency, a lack of openness. You have to rely on the mayor’s people to get an accounting. There’s not a lot of independent information we think you have to have to come up with solutions.”

Last year a few aldermen grumbled about the need for an independent office to scrutinize city business, something on the par of the GAO at the federal level. But nothing’s come of it, and there's obviously not time to get anything in place for this year. The city projects its budget problems will continue for the next three or four years, at least, though that still doesn't mean the process will change—even supporters seem hesitant to lobby for creating a new government office at a time when the city’s strapped for cash, though the alternative appears increasingly inadequate: aldermen, most with little history of independence, have a few days to try to analyze hundreds of pages of line-item spending and revenue recommendations without any comprehensive alternatives. And during this time they’re still supposed to be taking care of the regular business in their wards.

“But it’s not just the issue of having the time and resources to do this,” says Third Ward alderman Pat Dowell. “We’ve got to have the will.”

Here’s the good news: Mayor Daley believes that, with your help and a few dozen aye votes from the City Council, he can keep Chicago moving forward.

Here’s the bad news: Because of the imploding economy, not even staff cuts, new taxes and fee increases, reduced services, and additional leasing of public assets—and, if you can believe it, not even a doubling of library fines—are likely to fix the city’s budget problems. Even in the best circumstances, city officials project deficits of at least $200 million a year through 2012.

That, in essence, was the message of the mayor’s annual budget address, delivered to an overflow crowd in council chambers Wednesday morning. It prompted a standing ovation.

"I have confidence that over the long term American’s economy will rebound," Daley said. "It may take time, but we’ll get there. Until then, like every family, we must continue to manage our city budget with a slow economy in mind."

To that end, the mayor proposed several ways to cut spending—and a few more ways to bring in revenue that in previous years was generated by various real estate, sales, and property taxes now in rapid decline. Among the highlights, or lowlights, depending on your perspective: 929 city employee pink slips and 1,350 vacancies that won’t be filled; the consolidation of several city departments; diversion of some of the Midway lease proceeds, and anticipated cash from leasing city parking meters, to general operating funds; dismissal—that’s right—for city employees who don’t "do a day’s work for a day’s pay"; refinancing existing debt; hiking certain parking fees and raising taxes on entertainment and private-sector garbage collection; service shutdowns for six days around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. The city will also cut funding for free downtown trolley rides and the jumping jack program for kids, and library scofflaws can expect to pay twice as much in fines.

The budget proposal, Daley said, “improves management, minimizes reductions in services, and maintains funding for public safety while still investing in neighborhood infrastructure to keep Chicago moving forward.”

Translation: in these tough times, when just about every governmental entity in the country is scrambling to piece together a survival plan, the mayor and his staff were smart enough to include a few party favors in theirs that will be hard for aldermen to resist. Millions from the Midway deal will be poured into the ward menu program, which allows aldermen to spend money on whatever capital improvements they choose. Ever-increasing pots of TIF money will continue to be doled out to finance other pet projects. Daley says he'll lobby the federal government for a jobs program that will help all of Chicago.

Without dropping his name, the mayor even made a pledge to his on-again, off-again critic James Meeks—who as far as I could tell wasn’t physically in the building—by vowing to pressure Springfield to reform the school funding system.

"If we work together and avoid the bickering that has divided the federal government and other cities and states attempting to pass their budgets, we’ll be taking an important step toward addressing the financial challenges we face," Daley said.

Aldermen may have stood and applauded the mayor afterward, but nobody could pretend to be happy about what he’d said. Some of the out-and-out skeptics, like Bob Fioretti, Pat Dowell, and Scott Waguespack, wondered why some of the "management improvements" hadn’t been implemented already if they were such great ideas. "We plan six months ahead; other cities have five and six-year plans," said Waguespack. "There’s no way you can say you didn’t see some of this coming."

Even stalwart allies said their constituents didn’t want to hear about slowed or reduced service—they wanted more trash pickup and tree-trimming, not less. Not that anyone had better ideas than the mayor’s. And all could acknowledge that desperate times call for desperate measures. Before a phalanx of TV cameras, 31st Ward alderman Ray Suarez held up a copy of the 611-page budget proposal and made a pledge that would have been unthinkable, or at least unutterable, in many of the flush years past: "We are going to have to look closely at this thing."

Hearings start next Monday at 10 AM in council chambers; they're open to the public.

Quite a few aldermen fretted aloud Wednesday that the Daley administration was hurrying them to approve the unprecedented deal to privatize Midway Airport—in fact, many noted that they didn’t see the specifics of the plan until a few days before the meeting, and several told me point blank that they didn’t understand it well enough to know if it really was a good deal. "It’s a leap of faith," as Sixth Ward alderman Freddrenna Lyle put it. They all voted for it anyway. It passed 49-0.

There was a simple reason for the seeming contradiction, according to 27th Ward alderman Walter Burnett, one of the most vocal worriers. "You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t," he said in an interview Thursday. And he decided he’d rather be damned for doing.

"It’s hard because it’s a budget crisis and you feel you have to do something about it, you have to bring some money in, but you feel rushed," he said. "The only reason all of us went with it is that some deal is better than no deal. The money is too good. And [city budget officials] made allusions to the fact that if we didn’t approve the deal now it might go down the drain and 'It’ll be your fault.' All these financial crises are putting a lot of pressure on us. I know my colleagues felt the same way—they just weren’t saying anything. If the economy weren’t what it was this would’ve been deferred."

Burnett said he’s still upset the council was put in that position, calling the administration "disrespectful" for assuming aldermen would sign off with just a few days to ask questions and scrutinize the deal. “The media even got the details before we did,” he said. "At the briefing all we heard was what we’d read in the papers. We go home and look on the internet and we read things that we haven’t even seen yet. We have a big responsibility, and I try to take it seriously. But you feel half-blinded."

Not known for publicly criticizing the administration, Burnett said a couple of Mayor Daley’s aides asked what had driven him to question the timing of deal on the council floor. "People were asking me, 'Are you all right?'—like there was something wrong with me," he said. "We just wanted some time and courtesy. We’re the ones who get blamed when things go wrong."

But some of his colleagues were banking on the assumption that voters wouldn’t be paying attention that closely. As one explained to me, privatizing assets gives city officials political cover to jack up fees on the public. If aldermen voted to raise the tolls on the Skyway or the price of parking downtown, citizens might actually get upset at them, he said—so why not let a private company do it and take the blame while the city gets its cut of the cash? By that time, people are likely to forget about the lease deal.

Here's news that may not be news to anyone: city garbage collectors sometimes loaf on the job.

An investigation by the city's Office of the Inspector General has just confirmed it, finding that sanitation crews in ten wards generally only worked about six hours of their eight-hour shifts.

Perhaps most striking about the IG's report [PDF] are the estimates of what this kind of waste across the city ends up costing taxpayers: nearly $21 million a year in wages, benefits, gas, truck maintenance, and other inefficiencies.

The report comes a week before Mayor Daley and his staff introduce the city's next budget, which will presumably include plans for coping with an estimated $420 million deficit.

At the same time, the mayor and Streets and Sanitation commissioner Michael Picardi have promised to continue the city's slow rollout of curbside recycling services after dumping the expensive and ineffective Blue Bag program earlier this year. Under current city plans the new Blue Bin program would cost millions of dollars for additional staff, trucks, and other expenses.

As with previous investigations by the IG's office, this one raises questions--never fully answered--about how and why rank-and-file workers were allowed to cheat the taxpayers. Workers report to ward superintendents, who report to higher-ups downtown and serve with the consent of the local aldermen; the people running this operation either knew this was going on or should have. As the Trib's Dan Mihalopoulos reports, the blame game's already under way.

Even aside from the loafing tax paid by Chicago residents, it's pretty clear that our waste disposal services could be provided more cheaply. Garbage trucks are staffed with three-person crews, though most other cities employ two workers per truck and many private companies just one. Trucks often return to waste transfer centers, where they dump the trash they pick up, without full loads, costing more in work hours, fuel, and wear and tear. And after initial investment, recycling should generate revenue from the sale of reusable materials and reduced landfilling bills, but in the absence of a coherent, citywide waste reduction plan Chicago's disposal costs have continued to mount.

Oh happy day! the Tribune finally got around to discussing tax increment financing, Mayor Daley's favorite budget scam. It was a tad misleading and not nearly as hard-hitting as I would like. But hey, I'm not complaining--it's a start.

The piece quotes 39th 38th Ward alderman Tom Allen, who's becoming increasingly outspoken in his criticism about the program. "We need to go to Springfield and change the state law so we can reclaim our TIF dollars that are being held hostage and put that money back in the general fund," Allen told Trib reporter Dan Mihalopoulos. "We're at least partly in the trouble we're in because of the TIFs."

But there's no need to wait for state approval to kill TIF districts. As has been noted by Jason Hardy, a researcher for the Center for Economic Policy Analysis and perhaps the foremost expert on TIFs around, city officials can do it anytime they want. So you're welcome to get to work, aldermen.

The city’s immediate budget problems may be lessened, if not wiped out, by the deal to privatize Midway Airport that the Daley administration announced Tuesday. It will almost certainly win approval from the City Council—the quick dividends will be too much to pass up in this tumultuous economic climate, and aldermen won’t have much expertise except the administration’s to use for evaluating the deal.

Of course, it’s hardly free money. As in other deals that hand long-time (as in 99-year) control of public assets to private businesses, the city will lose out in the likely event that the airport increases in value and generates more revenues in the decades ahead.

And the budget problems aren’t going away—at all levels of government, they’re likely to get worse over the next couple of years. There is a solution that might make more financial sense, but it’s arguably not right, and it certainly isn’t politically viable: outsource the labor and operations of the government rather than relinquishing control of its physical assets.

Salaries, benefits, and pension obligations make up the biggest piece of the budget pie, by far; more than 80 percent of the city’s corporate fund, its primary pot of money, goes toward salaries and wages. Contracting with private companies for labor might save taxpayers some money, but competition for the deals (assuming competition would determine them as opposed to, say, nepotism or backroom handshakes) would drive down wages and benefits for those workers—it's happened before—as well as people doing comparable work in the fully private sector.

Sorry to be Mr. Doomsday, but even before Wall Street started tanking, public-sector budgets were a ticking time bomb, and now our elected officials have even tougher choices to make. I hope voters are paying attention, because as we know the political process typically rewards people who make the shrewdest short-term moves while leaving the messy stuff for later. 

As president of the local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, Mark Donahue isn’t happy about any of the scores of vacancies in the Chicago Police Department. But he’s particularly frustrated that the department hasn’t filled more than 100 openings for field training officers who provide rookie cops with on-the-street training, and he's outraged that the program has just been scaled back further.

"What they’ve implemented for field training officers is probably going to devastate the entire training program," Donahue says.

As much as the union and elected officials love to talk about putting more police on the street, training and deployment strategies typically have a far greater impact on law enforcement than a handful of extra cops. And Donahue says that when the field training program is working right, the training officers can show inexperienced police how to work with the community—a key to improving relations as well as reducing crime.

But in a year when murders are up, deadly clashes between police and civilians still happen regularly, and the department rank and file is suffering low morale, the department only had 149 field training officers on the payroll as of August, well under the 267 called for in this year’s budget.

Worse, Donahue says, the department recently decided to cut in half the number of police districts that use the field training program—it’s now down to just six of the city’s 25. That’s a huge disincentive, according to Donahue, since most veteran cops would have to transfer to a new district to participate. 

"As many as 50 percent of training officers are going to be resigning because of the stipulations they’ve put on them," Donahue says. "It’s unthinkable that the department would make such a decision."

I’d like to report what the department’s take on this is, but no one from its news affairs division responded to my call.

The backdrop for all of this, of course, is the city’s $420 million budget hole, which will likely require hundreds of layoffs, unfilled positions, and early retirements to plug--though the Daley administration hasn't been saying much about it. Some aldermen, though, are quietly suggesting that Donahue’s union could pay for a few more jobs if it were willing to give up a few costly perks. On top of their regular pay, officers receive $730 every three months for “duty availability”—that is, simply being on call, even though they get additional overtime pay if they actually have to take an extra shift. They receive another $600 every three months to pay for new uniforms, and they can take a check for any furlough time they deserve but don’t use. These benefits add up to about $73 million a year.

"Apparently the aldermen grumbling about such things don’t see the hypocrisy of their grumblings," Donahue says. "The average police officer coming out of the police academy onto the force is going to make an investment of $7,000 to $9,000 dollars—the department doesn’t buy the uniform, doesn’t buy the guns, doesn’t buy the shoes. What would the aldermen say if we proposed cutting the money for their staff and expenses?"

Evidence that the agenda for Wednesday’s City Council meeting was relatively light could be found in the first question asked of Mayor Daley at a press conference afterward.

"Mr. Mayor, Alderman Fioretti has proposed a ban on metal baseball bats at Park District facilities and the schools because of the injuries that seem to be more prevalent with baseballs hit from those bats. What do you think of that?"

The mayor seemed to be prepared for this question and didn’t hesitate before looking right at the reporter and answering. "Well, I think especially they’re going to be looking at the number of lawsuits that get filed with things like that. Like with anything else you have to be careful with what type of things you’re using. You know, baseball. So you have to look at it very carefully."

Several of the journalists cast questioning looks at each other. One decided to ask for clarification: Does that mean the mayor would support an ordinance like this?

"Well, I don’t know. You have to find out. You don’t want any child to be injured, so you have to look at it very carefully."

The mayor called on someone else.

“Alderman Burke wants to ban texting while driving,” the reporter said. “What do you think of that?”

Granted, all but about a half hour of the two-hour council meeting had been taken up by speeches honoring local Olympic athletes and the heroic deeds of police officers and firefighters, with the last 30 minutes reserved for aye votes on bonds, zoning amendments, traffic regulations, and the like. But it’s not as if the city doesn’t have any problems that need addressing, and in the council lounge many of the aldermen who weren’t talking up Barack Obama’s chances were quietly discussing the city’s lousy budget prognosis and wondering how much they would have to cut or tax.

In August budget officials predicted Chicago’s deficit would grow to hundreds of millions of dollars by the end of next year and vowed to keep every option for confronting it on the table. Aldermen say they’ve only been told to expect layoffs as well as delays or cancellations of their menu items--the alley repaving, traffic light installations, and other small capital projects they select on their own. They obviously aren’t happy about either possibility, since they expect the layoffs to delay service delivery and the postponements to reduce opportunities for impressing voters. One is even murmuring about asking Mayor Daley to cut some of his own beloved programs, like flower planting.

So far, though, city officials haven’t said what they intend to do, and while the mayor shared lots of ideas about lots of issues at his press conference, he didn’t say squat about dealing with the budget shortfall.

"You can’t be using your phone while driving," he said in firm support, more or less, of the proposed text-messaging ban. “So whatever, you can’t, no, especially using one-hand driving is very dangerous.”

Another reporter asked Daley what he thought of the possibility of the state leasing the lottery for an infusion of cash. Amid a lengthy analysis of the U.S. economy, the mayor said it was probably a good idea. "This is a very difficult economy, and it’s not going away for a couple of years. That’s the prediction of all the economists. It’s going to be a long, long, tough economy, and next year’s going to be even worse. So I have always thought that if you have a public asset [pdf] that can be used for infrastructure purposes, about putting people back to work in businesses like that, I think it’s very, very important. . . . You can’t spend money if you don’t have money. The only people who do that is the federal government. They print it. That’s why we’re really in jeopardy in this economy—they print money and they just print money and they keep printing it and that’s why the value is less and less every year. . . ."

Daley said he wasn’t worried that the O’Hare expansion project had been delayed by a court battle; he was confident that it would clear its final legal hurdles soon. On the other hand—"Well, I’m worried about the Sox,” the mayor said. “I mean, you worry about the Sox, losing two games yesterday.”

And the Cubs? "The Cubs have a good team. You know, they play small ball. They’re in a drought now, but look at their record. They’ve done a tremendous job all year. We’ve been up and down, the Sox. This is not good."

Are the Cubs going to choke again? "No, I don’t think so."

Another reporter tried to break in: "Alderman Suarez wants to—"

But Daley wasn’t done. “Because they’ve been playing smart ball—good pitching, hitting, and defense. I mean, they’re not hitting the home runs. They’re hitting singles and doubles and they’re scoring.”

What about Chicago’s budget problems—any progress or new ideas coming to the forefront? "Oh yeah, you better believe it," he said. "Chicago, every city, every town."

Right. . . . Well, what is the city considering?

"You know your budget problems are your own. Cutbacks, layoffs, you know it’s going to get worse every year. So we’re in the same dilemma. It’s not going to go away. It’s going to get worse and worse. . . . We are in a recession. I know the politicians in Washington don’t want to tell you that, but we are in a recession. . . . "

Next question. "The real estate transfer tax is down, as you pointed out in your preliminary budget, but now Alderman Burke is proposing no longer trying to tax transactions that are within divorce proceedings where one spouse gives up property to another spouse. Do you think that should continue to be taxed?"

Daley’s face contorted in disgust before he emitted a high-pitched noise that sounded something like"Yeeeh, yunnett!"

"But he says it’s an unfair penalty when there’s a divorce, which is emotionally wrenching and financially draining enough."

The mayor regained his composure. "Lawyers are all taken care of. Remember that: the lawyers are all taken care of in a divorce."

"But if they’ve already paid once, why should the spouses, the divorced spouses, pay twice?"

"They can take it out of their lawyer’s fee."

Clearly pleased with his answer, Daley began walking away from the podium. But one last question was shouted after him: Had he been following the "lipstick on a pig" controversy?

The mayor slowed up for a second. “Be very careful about what you say in public,” he said.

The Park District may have a little budget deficit, but there's a plan. That's good to hear. Given the economic times, I was starting to worry about how the district would be able to afford the items at the top of its agenda.

Like the $22 million acquisition of its Streeterville-area central office from the landlord who contributed $50,000 to Mayor Daley's campaign fund, since top staff obviously need to be near the Gold Coast.

And the $2 million (and growing) south Lincoln Park soccer field. (Hey, somebody's got to make sure the kids at the Latin School have a place to play within walking distance.)

And the $25 million rush-job restoration of Buckingham Fountain so it can be in tip-top shape for next April's visit by the International Olympic Committee, even if everything else (baseball batting cages, running tracks, playlots, etc.) has to wait. All together now: The Olympics comes first!

Maybe they could use the money generated by downtown parking garages--except that they already leased them to a company that employs the mayor's nephew.

But, to his credit, parks superintendent Tim Mitchell has apparently devised a solution that I think the mayor can sign on to: getting rid of 300 park district positions--as in, you know, people who could actually work in the parks.

Alderman Richard Mell was ready to legislate. Or rage. Or revolt. Or something.

"I guess I don’t know what the answer is," he said during a meeting of the City Council’s buildings committee on Tuesday. "Maybe I’ve been here too long."

Mell, the former owner of a spring-manufacturing company, is one of the last of the old-school machine Democrats. His 33rd Ward organization still controls dozens of government jobs, and no one’s been able to put together a serious challenge against him since 1991. Last fall he managed to move state rep Rich Bradley out of the way so his daughter Deb could be slated for the 40th District seat. "I thought I’d get her in there the first time," he said. "Then she’ll work her ass off and win them over." He’s also a loyal soldier for Mayor Daley in the City Council: in May he used his position as chairman of the Committee on Committees, Rules, and Ethics to help Daley bypass usual council procedures and repeal the city’s foie gras ban.

On Tuesday, though, he sounded ready to drop the whole business and join the antiglobalization movement.

On the docket were three proposed ordinances to deal with problems created by the city’s dramatic real estate slowdown—unfinished building construction and foreclosed rental properties. One would make sure tenants are notified at least a week before banks take over their apartment buildings; the other two would require that secure fencing and the name of the owner be posted around construction sites and open lots.

"Folks have started properties, got foundations into the ground, realized they don’t have enough sales, and in some cases just walked away from them," Mell said. "They’ve got these shoddy fences they’ve put up, and every time the wind blows they fall over. I’ve got one where I’ve had four six-flats in a row with [just] the foundation in there—they’ve left the foundations full of water, right next to a park. All I need is a kid to come over there and fall in and drown."

Only four aldermen had shown up, and just two of them were members of the committee, so the items were all tabled for further discussion. But Mell, who was sponsoring two of them, took the opportunity to offer his colleagues an analysis of the economy.

"It’s not a situation I see getting any better—that’s the problem. I don’t want to launch into the budget, really, but I see this as indicative of what this whole city’s going through right now. We have no more manufacturing in this city, and our housing is dead. . . . I guess I’m just venting. . . . I’ve been here when times were a lot better, and these things weren't happening."

The meeting was over within minutes, but Mell continued to hold court in the hallway and then his office, reminiscing about the industrial economy in his hometown in Michigan, recalling his days as a manufacturer, ripping into corporate CEOs for outsourcing American jobs, marveling at the success of the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, and predicting social upheaval in the future. "Here’s a good example of how bad we are right now," he said. "When I go in the Jewels I see people standing in line at the coin machine and trading in their coins, which tells me these people are really strapped, that they have to tap into their piggy banks to buy groceries. Where are we headed? . . . We’re approaching 2 percent of the population shopping at Nieman-Marcus and the rest shopping at Target and Wal-Mart and the dollar stores, and that is a prescription for revolution . . ." 

Some people read my last post and essentially said, WTF? Why not share the expense account info for all 50 aldermen?

OK, fair enough. Here's the full list of every expense submitted by each aldermanic office in 2007. You'll notice that not all of the information is self-explanatory--some items aren't labeled fully or at all, while others are listed as "miscellaneous," with more detailed information only available in the form of paper receipts. (Channel 32 has done some great digging to find out more.)

But in lots of instances--most?--it's clear where the money was spent but not why. 

** UPDATE: Please note that for wards 2, 3, 7, 15, 16, 20, 24, 32, and 42, the first six months of expenses were incurred by the previous aldermen, not those first elected last year. 

Faced with the prospect of major budget cuts, some aldermen are now saying they’re willing to forgo their salary increases—but hands off their office expense accounts.

Aldermen use the accounts to pay for things like rent, utilities, supplies, newsletter printing, and sometimes staffers on top of the three they're already budgeted. (Committee chairmen get funds to hire additional people.) For the last couple years each alderman was allotted $33,280 to cover annual costs, a sum that many said was simply too small to run an office on; some who could afford to dipped into their political war chests for extra funds.

But last fall the Daley administration, needing votes for its package of tax and fee increases, agreed to boost the 2008 expense accounts to $73,280 apiece, at an additional cost to taxpayers of $2 million total. And now aldermen don’t want to go back to the old days of nine months ago. “That's money you use to add more staff or help your constituents,” 25th Ward alderman Danny Solis told the Sun-Times.

Solis is right on this one—at least, he could be right. One of the many reasons the City Council rubber-stamps the mayor’s agenda is that most aldermen don’t have the resources to be fully engaged legislators—they and their staffs spend most of their time dealing with neighborhood housekeeping such as parking regulations, business signage, and zoning requests. On the council floor aldermen merely say yes or no to the mayor’s proposals; coming up with their own takes extra research, legal expertise, and time that most simply don’t have—even if they were willing to use it.

Having the will is even more important than having the money, though, and it’s not at all clear that aldermen use the funds they already get as responsibly as they could.

According to expense reports submitted to the city’s finance department, aldermen spend their office funding on a range of stuff—from nice cars (SUVs have been quite popular) to long-distance phone calls (not itemized between business and personal use) to pizza (one office liked theirs with half plain cheese, half pepperoni).

What follows are summaries of the 2007 expenses submitted by three different aldermen from south, west, and north sides of the city. (Note: The totals for the first two are larger than $33,280 because some of the expenditures were later covered from another city account.)

Alderman 1

Alderman 2

Alderman 3

Yes, it's that bad. Chicago budget officials announced at a press conference Thursday afternoon that the city is expected to come up about $141 million short this year and $420 million in the hole by the end of 2009.

The slowed real estate market was a big culprit--the real estate transfer tax will pull in $51 million less this year than it did in 2007. People are also spending less on gas, cigarettes, and bottled water, so tax monies on those items aren't coming in as expected.

And of course city spending is way up--by $28 million over what was budgeted, mostly on snow removal and extra police--despite $20 million in cuts made earlier this year.

Perhaps what was most striking about the announcement was that budget officials refused to outline any strategies for coping with the deficit. Layoffs? "I'm not going to speculate on the number of layoffs or if there will be any," said chief financial officer Paul Volpe. Tax hikes? "Mayor Daley has ruled out a property tax increase.... But we're going to have to make some tough choices." Dipping into the millions of dollars in reserve from the Skyway lease deal? "Today everything is on the table." Reductions in street cleaning, tree trimming, pothole repair? "We hope that any changes we make will have a minimal impact on critical services." 

So what is going to happen?

"We're not here today to talk about solutions," Volpe said. 

This morning's Sun-Times reports that the Daley administration may have to pinkslip 1,000 city employees to try to make up for a huge budget deficit, though city officials still haven't specified how large it is or where exactly the money's short. Chicago Federation of Labor leader Dennis Gannon was predictably wary of the plan to slice the city payroll, saying layoffs in 1992 and 2002 had already pared the workforce down as far as it could go. "We've cut to the bone already," he said. "Now, you're at the bone marrow."

Whether the city's cut too much or not enough is open to debate, but we all know what usually happens during layoff time: certain protected people stay on the payroll (or manage to get added to it despite the budget woes) whether they're necessary or not, and certain others are canned whether they're necessary or not. So yes, service delivery can be affected by trimming the workforce, but it doesn't necessarily have to be. How it plays out is a question of management as much as resources. The payroll was bigger 30 years ago than it is now, but most longtime Chicagoans I've spoken with say services now are better--or at least distributed more equitably--than before.

They're also far more expensive.

Beneath the rhetoric, it is true that the city payroll dropped by about 1,200 during Daley’s 1992 cuts, and it declined by another 1,000 during the late 1990s. But it's barely changed over the last ten years, even as the budget has gone up more than 50 percent—and Daley twice was reelected decisively.