Friday, July 24, 2009
Fox News Chicago
by Jeff Goldblatt

Chicago, IL - Cook County Board President Todd Stroger late Thursday night vetoed the County Board's decision earlier this week to cut the county's portion of the sales tax by a half a penny on Jan. 1. At the same time, he is ordering department heads to prepare drastic cost cutting measures, in the face of what could be a major budget showdown in the coming weeks.

The Board voted July 21 to cut that new revenue by half, and required that the County Budget for Fiscal Year 2010 be based on the actual revenue received in Fiscal Year 2009, with no further increase in taxes. But the County will not have a record of actual 2009 revenues until the end of the first quarter of the 2010 Fiscal Year.

"We cannot hold our budget process hostage to revenue reports that we won't have in hand until after January of next year," Stroger said in a press release Friday. "Furthermore, the Board has failed to take into account cuts we expect to the County revenue stream in the wake of the passage of the State of Illinois budget - and those cuts could be significant."

Sources tell Fox Chicago News a veto override isn't guaranteed despite what some Cook County Board Members forecasted earlier this week.

According to the release: besides expected reductions in State funding for County related grants and core programs, County revenue is also expected to be negatively impacted by the operational costs of funding self-insurance, the County's need to pay it's 2007 pension obligation, the needs of the Health and Public Safety and Criminal Justice Systems, and funding required for statutory and court related mandates.

Concerned about the depth of cuts that would whack social-service programs if the tax rollback were enacted, there has been a significant backlash of public opinion among residents living in the West Side and South Side of Cook County. Sources say that several Commissioners may be re-thinking their initial support of the rollback.

The pressure may be intensified by Stroger's move to ask his department heads to prepare three different budgets, in the event that his veto is overridden. One of those budgets would include a 19 percent cut. It's possible this news is designed to place more pressure on some commissioners who are wavering on the sales tax rollback.

The votes of 14 out of 17 Board Members are needed for an override. The next Board meeting is scheduled for Sept. 1. And so, it is likely Commissioners will face a barrage of overt and behind-the-scenes pressure, until that time, to either support the Stroger veto and to align against it.