If Mayor Richard M. Daley has his way nonunion, city employees earning more than $35,000 a year will be forced to take five weeks off next year without pay to help balance the budget, which is currently $520 million in the hole.
If Mayor Richard M. Daley has his way nonunion, city employees earning more than $35,000 a year will be forced to take five weeks off next year without pay to help balance the budget, which is currently $520 million in the hole.
There are 33,154 city employees, which is down 467 from the 33,621 employees this year and more than 6,200 from 2001.
To achieve a balanced budget for 2010 Daley wants to increase furlough days from 15 to 24 and has not ruled out more furlough days in the future. The City Council must now decide whether to accept the mayor’s proposed $6.2 billion budget or make changes before approving it. By law, the city must have a balanced budget by year end. The City Council is scheduled to take a vote on the budget Dec. 2.
“No one likes to take days off without pay but it is necessary to avoid further layoffs,” Daley told the Defender. “The furlough days apply to me as well so I too will share in the sacrifice I am asking from employees.”
But Daley said he also plans to meet with labor unions to ask for concessions from them including more furlough days. Labor union members make up 90 percent of the city’s workforce. Personnel costs alone make up 80 percent of city’s expenditures.
And while Daley said he disagrees with aldermen being exempted from the mandated furlough days, he said there’s nothing he can do about it.
“The City Council voted to exempt themselves from having to take furlough days. If we are asking employees to take days off, then we (city leaders) should do the same,” Daley said
According to Peter Scales, a spokesman for the city’s Budget Department, the city expects to save $50 million from a full year of payroll savings for the civilian union agreements for unpaid holidays, furloughs, etc. In addition the city expects to save $26 million from a full year of the non-union payroll savings, such as 12 unpaid holidays and 12 furlough days, and the elimination of cost-of-living increases.
Other cost saving measures Daley has proposed include cutting 220 vacancies for a savings of $18 million, eliminate cost of living increases for non-union employees, $6 million and an additional $20 million through non-personnel reductions.
Daley blames the poor economy for lowering the city’s revenues and said being challenged each year with balancing a budget is something he has been doing the last 20 years as mayor.
For the city’s part, Daley said he would use $370 million from the parking meter reserve account to help balance the budget. It would leave $730 million in the reserve account.
The city signed a $1.2 billion deal with Chicago Parking Meters LLC to lease Chicago’s 35,000 parking meters for the next 75 years.
That was not the first time the city leased assets to raise revenue.
In 2004 Daley signed a $1.8 billion deal with Cintra-Macquarie Consortium, a Spanish/Australian group that operates more than 30 tollways worldwide, to lease the Chicago Skyway for 99 years. The Chicago Skyway is a nearly 8-mile tollway system that connects Chicago with northwest Indiana.
And in 2008 the city attempted to strike a $2.5 billion deal to lease Chicago Midway Airport to Citi Infrastructure Investors, John Hancock and Vancouver Airport Services for 99 years.
Daley said leasing other city assets, such as the airports, to raise cash for the city is something he would consider again.
“We have to make sure when we consider these lease opportunities that it is done so in matter that will not cause any inconvenience to taxpayers,” Daley said. “The parking meter dea was a good deal but the transition of management was poor.”
He explained that the next time the city turns over management of an asset that it would make sure the transition period is spread out over time.
“Basically with the parking meter deal, we signed the contract, they gave us a check, we turned the keys over, and walked away,” the mayor said.
And as far as the city’s failed Olympic bid, “I was never really counting on the Olympics for our budget,” Daley said.
In December Chicago 2016, the city’s officia Olympic committee, commissioned a study tha concluded that had Chicago won the Olympics it would have stimulated $13.7 billion of incremental economic activity in Chicago from 2011 to 2021.
And the study also found that 172,000 new jobs would have been created in Chicago.
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