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Congratulations, taxpayersWednesday, February 11, 2009
Chicago Tribune
by Chicago Tribune editorial staff
For Todd Stroger, it was a tough repudiation: Tuesday night the Finance Committee of the Cook County Board
reached an agreement that—if it holds—would force his county government
to begin a long-overdue economizing. As tentatively approved, the
county's budget for 2009 would include:
•None of the hundreds of millions in needless borrowing on which Stroger had hoped to balance the budget.
•Cuts from Stroger's proposed budget for virtually every department in this bloated government.
•No general tax increase on the heels of last year's egregious increase in the sales tax.
A companion plus:
•Off-budget
proposals from Stroger's administration for $425 million in capital
improvement bonds have been slashed to $260 million. Those proposals,
still subject to a board vote, now focus more strictly on life safety
projects and building code compliance.
Just as Cook County
government remains a world away from real reinvention (and still needs
to repeal that sales tax hike), this revised version of Stroger's
budget isn't ideal: It relies on some revenue projections that may be
too rosy—and on an anticipated share of the federal stimulus package.
It
does, though, reflect the frustration of county taxpayers, many of whom
inundated board members' offices with telephone calls after seeing
their numbers on Monday's Tribune editorial page. Those callers
disliked Stroger's plan to balance the '09 budget by borrowing hundreds
of millions of dollars and thus increasing the county's debt.
Last
fall we criticized four Republican members of the board—Elizabeth Doody
Gorman, Gregg Goslin, Peter Silvestri and Tim Schneider—for maneuvers
that allowed Stroger's bonding notion to draw an early breath. They
promised then that they could stop the bonding later and, with help
from fellow Republican Tony Peraica and a roving coalition of
Democrats, on Tuesday they did.
Why is this deal tentative? Two reasons:
•Owing
to the arcana of county government, the same board members who voted
this budget out of the Finance Committee now must approve it, before
February ends, at a County Board meeting. That leaves time for whining
from other county officials, many of whom think they can't possibly
live with less money—even during an economic downturn in which millions
of people have lost jobs. We hope no one embarrasses Finance Chairman
John Daley by falling victim to the whiners and undoing this deal.
•One
unfortunate Stroger proposal remains: a plan to issue bonds for $104
million in county pension obligations. Plans are in the works to spread
out those payments over perhaps a dozen years or otherwise avoid any
bonding. That's crucial: Pension obligations are routine operating
expenses and shouldn't be covered by taking on debt. Long story: Board
members have themselves to blame for ever letting this notion surface.
They need to put it out of its misery—forever.
More trees still
need to fall in Todd Stroger's petrified forest. But Tuesday night's
budget agreement signals a start. Now let's reinvent Cook County for
the 21st Century.
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