Different times call for different mayors. Mediator, manager, uniter, developer, good cop, bad cop, salesman, visionary … in 21 years, Mayor Richard M. Daley has been all of those things, though never all at once.
What Chicago needs now is a fiscal disciplinarian — not a resourceful Mayor Fix-It who can dream up clever gimmicks to balance the budget, but a Mayor Chainsaw who will do what it takes to make the city live within its means.
Chicago is broke. There are not enough dollars coming in to replace the dollars going out. Yes, times are tough, but the city’s money problems didn’t begin and won’t end with the recession.
The city owes its pension funds almost $15 billion — more than twice the current annual operating budget. City Hall also locked in expensive 10-year contracts with 33 labor unions, providing increased wages and benefits for city workers through 2016. Chicago has made too many promises it can’t keep.
So listen carefully to the promises being made by those who would replace Daley. Freighted with all those obligations and held together with the fiscal equivalent of chewing gum — a TIF surplus here, the supposedly long-term endowment from the parking meter deal there — the budget is near collapse. The next mayor can’t prop it up with gimmicks. He or she must take it apart and put it back together, and it won’t be easy. Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t deserve your vote.
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A few months ago, city Inspector General Joseph Ferguson warned that Chicago faces annual budget deficits in the neighborhood of $1 billion for years to come. He suggested $250 million in potential cuts that were hooted down by city aldermen, who went along with Daley’s final limp-along budget instead.
Weeks later, the General Assembly passed a pension reform measure that requires the city to fund its police and fire pensions up to 90 percent of obligations by 2040. Daley protested that the new law will require a property tax increase of $550 million by 2015; for a while he hinted about bankrupting the funds instead.
The law doesn’t impose any new costs; it just requires the city to set aside the money to pay most of what it owes. It would be nice if the state held itself to the same standard, but never mind.
How will Chicago’s next mayor meet those challenges? The Tribune editorial board’s mayoral debate Friday provided some clues. On pensions, for example, Miguel del Valle and Carol Moseley Braun both insisted that current employees’ benefits were untouchable. Gery Chico allowed that it’s time to have a dialogue with unions. Rahm Emanuel called for changes in benefits, contributions and retirement age.
Daley’s parking meter debacle was bashed enthusiastically, but all four candidates were cautiously open to future privatization deals. All four would allow a licensed casino in Chicago.
Only del Valle wholeheartedly supports the General Assembly’s income tax increase; only Braun would flatly rule out new city taxes.
All of the candidates want stronger schools and safer streets, both of which mean more spending, not less. Chico’s schools plan would likely result in higher teacher salaries; he’d pay for it by cutting administrative offices by one-third and by making cost-saving changes in transportation. Emanuel supports a bill to limit teachers’ right to strike, saying they are “not underpaid.”
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There’s much more on the video, which you can view at chicagotribune.com/debate, and also in the candidates’ responses to the Tribune’s questionnaire at chicagotribune.com/elections. Candidates for City Council submitted answers to the same questions. Be sure to check them out, too, at the second of those Web sites.
Many aldermanic candidates seem determined to preserve Chicago’s 50 fiefdoms as service delivery zones, regardless of cost. They’re still wedded to the city’s inefficient ward system for snow removal or garbage pickup, for example, despite the savings that would be realized by using a grid plan that ignores ward boundaries. They know residents are far more focused on potholes than pensions, and we get that, too. But something has to give — and that can’t only mean the taxpayers.
Ask yourself this: Does this candidate offer ideas to help the city out of its financial mess, or is he or she simply insisting on the unsustainable status quo?
Don’t vote for the candidate who tells you what you want to hear. Vote for the one who tells you the truth.
