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Faced with closing some Cook County health clinics, two county commissioners on Monday raised the idea of a property tax increase while budget officials said the county's financial forecast is getting worse.
Commissioner Deborah Sims (D-Chicago), without using the words "property tax increase," indicated that she might push for a higher tax levy to prevent planned closings of health clinics in Ford Heights and Phoenix. The levy is the total amount of revenue to be generated by the property tax.
Sims questioned county chief financial officer Tom Glaser on how much the county could increase its tax levy. She said raising it to the maximum allowed by law would bring in about $23 million more in revenue during the current fiscal year, which began Dec. 1.
Board President Todd Stroger has proposed a $3 billion budget for the 2006-07 fiscal year that would not involve raising taxes. A majority of the board has said it agrees with his budget plan.
But Sims sounded ready to fight after another commissioner said a $23 million levy increase would mean that the average homeowner in the county would pay $12 more per year to the county in property tax. Budget officials said they were still working on an official estimate of that impact.
"That's not a lot of money for the taxpayers to assume," Sims said of the $12 figure. "I think that's one of the things that we should look at ... if it means saving clinics and providing critical services."
The county's property tax levy of $720.5 million has not gone up since 2001.
"We've never reached out and said in eight years that we would increase the levy," Sims said. "If we can get this $23 million on the table, we can save my two (clinics)."
Commissioner Jerry Butler (D-Chicago), who also has protested the planned cuts in health care, indicated he would go along with Sims.
"I'm prepared to pay the bill," Butler said. "We cannot cut our way out of this crisis."
In going over the numbers, Glaser and Comptroller Walter Knorr also made it clear that the county is nearly broke. Revenue from patient fees at Stroger Hospital and other county health facilities, which lagged behind all year, dropped off even more at the end of the fiscal year -- coming in $97 million, or 23 percent, behind budget projections.
"October and November were disastrous as far as ... patient fees," Knorr said. "Frankly, in looking at the numbers, we're running behind already in January and February's collections."
Patient-fee revenue is a "few million" lower for the first two months of this fiscal year, which began Dec. 1, as compared to the same time last year, Knorr said.
Between declining revenue and a health bureau that went over budget on overtime and prescription drugs, the county spent all of its financial reserves in its general fund during the past fiscal year, Knorr said.
"We should be very concerned about the loss of the (reserve) fund balance," Knorr said.
Not only does the depletion of the reserve fund leave the county with little emergency cash, officials said, it could hurt the county's bond rating, making it more expensive for it to borrow money.
Budget officials will present amendments today that will lay out $107 million in extra cutbacks that were not specified in the budget when presented.
Budget Director Donna Dunnings said all but "one or two" of the elected county officials refused to make additional cuts, so she cut their budgets for them by reducing outside consultants and "focusing on their core mission."