Cuts, Layoffs, Tax Hikes Frame Preckwinkle's County Budget

By Chuck Sudo in News on Oct 25, 2011 1:30PM

County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is set to release her proposed 2012 budget today. Much like Mayor Rahm Emanuel's proposed city budget for next year, Preckwinkle toes the line on no property tax hikes and instead is hoping to balance a $315 million deficit with a combination of budget cuts, hikes in other taxes and fees and layoffs.

If Preckwinkle's budget passes, expect to pay more to tobacco, alcohol and buying a car. The county cigarette tax would be expanded to loose tobacco and snuff and could generate $12 million in revenue next year. Preckwinkle will also propose an increase in sales tax on liquor wholesalers. The tax on beer could increase from six cents a gallon to nine cents a gallon. Before you start bitching about how you already pay through the nose for a pint of beer, consider the county alcohol tax hasn't been raised since 1989. The proposed increase could bring in $30 million to county coffers.

Preckwinkle's budget calls for eliminating free parking at county courthouses for jurors, raising parking fees at courthouses and county health centers and laying off over 1,000 workers. She indicated many of these decisions were made because labor unions balked at eight unpaid furlough days; six of them would be holidays.

Other ideas proposed by Preckwinkle include shifting 1,000 non-violent prisoners at Cook County Jail to electronic monitoring; cutting the population of the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center in half; and demanding that $47 million in consulting contracts with the health and hospital system be renegotiated and that billing for the system be improved.

Preckwinkle is hoping for a quick resolution and passage of the budget. Under her predecessor Todd Stroger debate over the county budget has often gone into February, well the new fiscal year.