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Mayors Blast Rauner's Proposed Cuts To Local Government Funding

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Mayors from throughout Chicago's suburbs lashed out Monday at Gov. Bruce Rauner's plan to cut in half state revenue sharing with local governments.

The governor's proposed budget would save approximately $600 million a year, by reducing the income tax revenue usually shared with municipal governments from 8 percent to 4 percent.

Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner said that would take nearly $10 million from his community, which would not be able to replace retiring police officers and firefighters.

"It would be reducing our efforts to maintain our streets, to plow the snow, to do the critical services that our residents expect," he said.

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A spokeswoman for Rauner said the cuts are needed to help fill a $6 billion budget hole, but the governor's so-called "Turnaround Agenda" would help local governments control costs.

Rauner's controversial "Turnaround Agenda" purports to reduce costs for local governments by establishing so-called "right to work zones," allowing them to decide whether or not workers should be required to join a union.

Downers Grove Mayor Martin Tully said the Rauner administration hasn't been specific about how its agenda would cut costs at the local level.

"Literally, week to week, what the ask has been has changed somewhat. Some additional details will come out in terms of the points underneath the Turnaround Agenda," he said.

The mayors were calling for public pressure on the governor's office.

Rauner didn't answer reporters' questions Monday and he may have been saving his response for the bargaining table, though his staff put out memos claiming, "The Governor is giving local...governments the tools they need to control costs at the local level...."

RTA Chairman Kirk Dillard, who ran against Rauner in the primary, said local leaders will almost certainly get some of their money back.

"Bruce Rauner is their savior with respect to trying to get through pension reforms that they need probably more than local government distributive fund," Dillard said.

Dillard, the long-time state senator from Hinsdale, knows how Springfield works. He predicts the municipalities will get at least part of that revenue cut restored if they play ball with the Governor on the rest of his so-called Turnaround Agenda, especially pension reform.

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