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Mayor Daley introduced a $20 million budget cut today that includes a hiring freeze, cutting nonpersonnel costs, and the elimination of non-essential overtime. Daley said he'd back layoffs, too, if that's what it took to avoid raising taxes again. (Yes, we all know how he hates to raise taxes.) He says these cuts are necessary because a recession may impact the city's tax and fee–based revenue.
"We are taking proactive steps to protect taxpayers before we see a total economic downturn, but it would also be irresponsible for us to not be conscious of what's going on around us nationally, and at some point it makes sense. That slowdown may manifest itself materially in the city's revenues," said Paul Volpe, CFO, City of Chicago.
Daley says the economy is "slipping and slipping," which is why, despite a $280 million tax increase, the city still needs to be as cost-conscious as possible.
Pointing to the struggling newspaper industry, he said, “If you go to your company, they’re laying off people…Why are they doing that if the economy is so good — if your sales are up, if your advertising is up? We’re just like you. We’re just like any other company. It’s a huge company. We have the taxpayers. You have your shareholders. You have to do things to protect them.”
[CBS2, Trib, ABC 7, S-T, Mayor's press release]
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hell has frozen over
Too bad the city has siphoned off the fruits of a good part of the last 15 or years of growth to all-but private slush funds (the city's TIF system) and, to a smaller extent, lawsuits arising from corruption or police mistreatment.
This guy is such a crappy manager.
In other words, we woefully underestimated this year's snow removal budget, and with November and December still to come, we're kinda fucked here...
Daley is a poor manager, the city budget is bloated there are probably 5,000 to 7,000 more city employees than when Daley took office but the city population has decreased in the same time period. The political armies that daley has put on the city payroll 11th ward, 8thward, 19th ward lapa, mells boys, all cost money (tax money) the amount of tax money being diverted by TIF zones is incredible. the city and county would not have needed to raise taxs if the TIF moey went into the city and county general fund insted of the daley slush fund for his developer friends. TIFS are the biggest scandal way more corrupt than hired trucks or fake minority contracts.
I'm gonna see how all this plays out. So much going on.
Daley is a rotten asshole. Just once I'd like to see him defend his administration without turning the question back toward the media. The Trib and Sun-Times don't raise people's taxes and then waste them on TIFs and dirty insider deals. He should have said the cuts were necessary due to the slowing economy and left it at that.