Tip for Rahm: Don’t be Daley
No one will argue with the fact that Chicago’s budget situation is dire—and has been for some time now. But Mayor Daley masked the drastic fiscal situation in Chicago with year after year of short-term budget gimmicks. The hope now is that, as he puts forth his first budget proposal next week, Mayor Emanuel will learn from his predecessor’s mistakes, and avoid a lot of the budget shenanigans that Mayor Daley was known for.
Here is my op-ed that ran yesterday on Gapers Block and Progress Illinois:
“No one will argue with the fact that Chicago’s budget situation is dire—and has been for some time now. But Mayor Daley masked the drastic fiscal situation in Chicago with year after year of short-term budget gimmicks. The hope now is that, as he puts forth his first budget proposal next week, Mayor Emanuel will learn from his predecessor’s mistakes, and avoid a lot of the budget shenanigans that Mayor Daley was known for.
Last year, Mayor Daley’s solution to Chicago’s budget deficit was to raid most of the remaining reserves from the parking meter deal and some TIF funds in order to balance the budget. He did this after years of balancing the budget through short-term budget gimmicks like privatizing the Skyway Tollway and Chicago’s system of 36,000 parking meters—angering many Chicagoans and ignoring the long term impacts of these decisions.
A short-term fix like asset privatization is certainly an attractive option for elected officials, not just in Chicago, but across the country. After all, it offers an easy way to get a big up-front wad of cash without raising taxes, laying-off workers or cutting popular city services. But, it’s not sustainable and it doesn’t address the root causes of our budget problems.
In addition to steering clear of asset privatization and their reserves, Mayor Emanuel should not build privatization savings into the budget if he is proposing privatizing any city services.
Savings from privatizing or outsourcing city services should only be applicable to the city budget if and when those contracts are finalized. He should not put anticipated savings in the budget and then force the aldermen to offset them or think up other ideas. That 11th hour politicking helped Mayor Daley move controversial proposals, but ended up badly hurting our budget.
Other recommendations include giving the City Council ample time to review the budget, avoiding last minute stunts, including the public in the process every step of the way and continuing to put the budget online in an easy to use, searchable format.
Finally, Mayor Emanuel should provide a separate TIF budget, so the public can see the money that is being diverted from taxing bodies like schools and parks to TIF districts for economic development projects.
As Mayor Emanuel and the City Council are forced to make difficult budgetary decisions, it is even more important for the public to be able to understand how tax dollars are being spent.”
Authors
Celeste Meiffren-Swango
State Director, Environment Oregon
As director of Environment Oregon, Celeste develops and runs campaigns to win real results for Oregon's environment. She has worked on issues ranging from preventing plastic pollution, stopping global warming, defending clean water, and protecting our beautiful places. Celeste's organizing has helped to reduce kids' exposure to lead in drinking water at childcare facilities in Oregon, encourage transportation electrification, ban single-use plastic grocery bags, defend our bedrock environmental laws and more. She is also the author of the children's book, Myrtle the Turtle, empowering kids to prevent plastic pollution. Celeste lives in Portland, Ore., with her husband and two daughters, where they frequently enjoy the bounty of Oregon's natural beauty.
