Daley Passes The Budget Buck

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Sep 24, 2010 2:20PM

The city faces a steep $650 million budget (which could reach $700 million by the time it's all said and done, according to Ald. Scott Waguespack) as it also faces a new mayor next year. The 2011 budget will be the parting gift that Mayor Daley leaves the new mayor, as well as a stack of any number of challenges. And if the Sun-Times Fran Speilman is to be believed, by "gift," we mean "pile of poop in a box." Rather than raise taxes or fees or make cuts to the city's budget, Mayor Daley will likely instead do what he's been doing: further depleting a series of "rainy day" funds and stockpiles of money, a "band-aid," according to Speilman.

Sources said the mayor will use a mix of tax-increment-financing (TIF) funds, parking meter and Chicago Skyway reserves, budget cuts and debt refinancing to declare his final budget balanced without raising taxes, fines or fees.

He'll also tap $32 million worth of unclaimed property tax relief bankrolled by parking meter proceeds.

Speilman also reports that Mayor Daley's plan will essentially wipe out the reserves of the parking meter deal but hopes to leave the Skyway fund untouched so it doesn't further fuck up the city's bond rating ("fuck up" being our phrase, not Fran's). As for the matter of TIFs, the city would only get about a quarter of the $700 million that's uncommitted right now, but Speilman suggests, "a City Council emboldened by Daley's lame-duck status will have the final say," echoing what Wags told us last week:

I think you’ll see in October a wide-open… it might even be serious… I won’t say attacks but a serious push to get to the bottom of some of the departments’ funding. The mayor might seems as something of a lame duck for the last seven months. Some may try to protect him. I think the Budget Chairwoman [Ald. Carrie M. Austin, 34th] is going to try to temper the council but it’s going to be difficult I think because people for the first time ever have, as I think John Kass might have said, the leash is off and they can say what they might have been feeling for 20 years.

Whether or not that pans out to be true only time will tell but, honestly, we're not holding our breath. And neither are the 30-something people whose names have been mentioned in connection with next year's election as they get ready to inherit an awful big budget mess.