Mayor Daley Presents Final Budget Of His Career
UPDATED October 13, 2010 12:15 p.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) - Mayor Richard M. Daley on Wednesday unveiled a $6.1 billion proposed city budget that dips into the city's reserves again to avoid tax hikes and fee increases.
LISTEN: Newsradio 780's Political Editor Craig Dellimore Reports
Podcast
Daley's plan calls for using $120 million from a rapidly dwindling account created when the city privatized parking meters. That would allow Daley to avoid tax increases. The mayor says it wouldn't be fair to heap on residents during the stubborn recession.
But some aldermen wondered if the budget simply leaves the prospect of big cuts and tax hikes to whoever succeeds Daley.
The mayor says tough times call for creativity.
"People are suffering it's a very tough economy," the mayor said. "You have to do more with less."
The cornerstone of the plan is greater police presence.
Daley said Tuesday that by fall 2011, the city will have added as many 830 officers to the street – through both reassignments of existing officers and the hiring of new Police Academy graduates.
In the past year, 212 officers have been transferred from desk to street duty. In addition, 111 will be moved from Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy community policing duties to the street within the next week.
The department also has hired 314 new officers in the past year and a half and next year, the city will conduct two more police classes, which should add 150 to 200 more new officers. The city is also seeking a new firm to administer a new entry-level police exam, the mayor's office said.
But Mark Donahue, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said the numbers don't keep pace with attrition.
"Just in the last nine months we've lost 417 (officers), they've hired 314 in the last 18 months. The figures don't lie," Donahue said. "The message he appears to be sending is 'the Calvary's on the way', when in fact there are no bodies on the horses," he said.
Mayor Daley agreed that the number of officers he plans to add may be too few, but he said it's the best City Hall can do and still keep its hands out of taxpayers' pockets.
"I need a thousand. Make it 10,000. I mean -- everything is not enough. The Park District, the schools -- even your family. . . . You don't have enough. But do taxpayers have enough money to pay more taxes?" Daley said.
Daley urged critics to look at what's happening around the country. "Other cities are laying off fire, police, closing police stations, fire stations — small cities, big cities, medium-sized cities all over the country. We're trying to maintain our percentages," he said.
Meanwhile, one alderman is demanding specific details on the mayor's budget.
Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd), who has announced plans to run for mayor next year, wants Mayor Daley to lay out exactly where City Hall gets its money and where those funds are being spent.
"We have no accurate understanding – aldermen don't, and I don't think the general public does – of where the money comes in and where the money goes out," Fioretti said.
Daley will present his budget at City Hall at 10 a.m.
The Chicago Sun-Times contributed to this report, via the Sun-Times Media Wire. The Associated Press also contributed to this report.
