Not All Speed Camera Revenue Guaranteed For City Children's Programs In Emanuel's Budget
By Chuck Sudo in News on Nov 19, 2013 5:10PM
Image via NBC Chicago screen grab.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and other proponents of the new speed camera program have long declared the revenue from fines issued as a result of the so-called “safety zones” would go into a “children’s fund” to bankroll after-school and summer jobs programs, anti-violence initiatives, early childhood education initiatives and other programs.
The Tribune reports this “children’s fund” doesn’t even exist in Emanuel’s 2014 budget. Instead, the revenue generated from speed cameras will go directly into the city’s general fund to be spent at the discretion of the mayor and City Council.
Speed cameras are the new TIFs, folks.
This should be worrisome to folks paying attention because the new camera network is poised to rake in much more than the $40 million to $60 million the Emanuel administration estimates in its first year of operation. The first four children’s safety zone test sites generated 204,743 warnings to motorists from Aug. 26 through Oct. 3, which would have resulted in nearly $14 million in fines if they were in operation.
Opponents to the speed camera plan argue that all of the revenue from the program should be earmarked to the programs Emanuel says they’ll fund. Former alderman and University of Illinois at Chicago professor Dick Simpson told the Tribune "A real children's fund would be one in which the lines went into a special fund and can only be spent for these purposes, and that's not what they're doing.”
Emanuel’s “the children are our future” argument doesn’t stop with the speeding cameras. Revenues from the proposed 75 cent hike in the cigarette tax have also been touted to go to free vision and health care for Chicago Public School students yet only $1.1 million of the projected $10 million the tax hike will generate are being earmarked for those programs; the rest are heading right into the general fund.
The Trib notes Emanuel stopped short of actually creating a “children’s fund” because the revenues from the speeding camera network and the series of small tax, fines and fee hikes are necessary to balance his 2014 budget. (That budget, by the way, is on track to sail through City Council with only minimal changes.)
The insulting thing here is that Emanuel and his supporters are hiding behind "the children" with this cash grab. In a real world Emanuel and City Council would bite the bullet, propose a property tax hike to help balance the budget and fund these programs while getting the city back on solid financial footing. We've been trained over the past three decades like some Pavlovian experiment to howl like dogs whenever we hear the word "property tax hike." Until someone takes a stand and explains why one is necessary we'll keep grousing instead about the dink-and-dunk hikes in ancillary taxes, fines and fees.