|
Dear neighbors,
Last week we began the city’s awkwardly named Mid-Year Budget Hearings. While not explicitly addressing the pending 2026 budget it does give us a sense of the current and expected needs and benefits of those departments. It also calls into question the fiscal benefit of across the board departmental budget cuts.
I’ll give a couple examples of what I mean. The Department of Businesses Affairs and Consumer Protection, through the various services and programs they administer, generate more than $80 million in revenue for the city’s Corporate Fund against a budget of approximately $22m. Cutting their headcount consequently cuts the revenue they generate for the city, gaining us nothing.
Another example is the Department of Planning and Development. Their work facilitating community and economic development projects creates jobs for Chicagoans as well as indirectly new property, income, and sales taxes. Cutting their budget will undoubtedly slow the pace of this work and make it harder to develop housing and small businesses in Chicago. Again, what do we gain from that? I’m not saying there aren’t efficiencies to be found (efficiencies that are harder to come by when the Department of Information and Technology has 45% vacancies) but we have to be thoughtful rather than DOGE-directed in how we find them.
Finally, yesterday the Committee on Finance voted on a landmark global settlement, collectively settling 176 suits against Chicago related to convicted former police sergeant Ronald Watts. His corrupt work, finally uncovered by an FBI sting, resulted in numerous wrongful convictions. While $90m is a frustratingly large sum, it truly dwarfs the amount the city would spend on legal fees alone, to say nothing of settling each of these suits separately. Our vote is an opportunity to close that chapter of corruption and continue to move toward accountable constitutional policing.
Have a great week!
|
