City budget tightening

There will be some job cuts:

Mayor Daley said Friday he will consolidate city departments that handle consumer issues, human services, economic development and business affairs to tighten the bureaucratic belt during Chicago’s worst budget crisis in a generation.

The consolidations will save $5 million. That’s barely a drop in the $420 million sea of red ink that’s forcing the mayor to lay off 1,080 city workers and eliminate thousands of vacancies.

But the departmental mergers are a symbolic attempt to demonstrate to Chicago taxpayers that the city is doing all it can to live within its means during what could be a prolonged economic downturn.

“This is a national, worldwide crisis. This is going to get worse. It will not get better. That’s the sad thing,” the mayor said.

“During these challenging times, we all need to work together to provide the services our people need, but in a way that our taxpayers can afford.”

Now there will also be some higher taxes and fees:

Mayor Richard Daley is considering increased taxes on downtown parking and tickets to ballgames and live shows and more red light cameras to catch traffic scofflaws as he tries to balance an out-of-whack city budget.

All of it would raise about $65 million and combined with 1,080 layoffs and leaving 3,000 positions vacant, partly help the mayor close what he contends is a $469 million budget gap this year and next as city revenues continue to plummet.

The administration is hoping to fill the rest of the hole with $150 million from leasing parking meters, $60 million from restructuring debt, not borrowing as much money and taking $20 million a year from the lease of Midway Airport to a private operator, according to aldermen and documents released by City Hall.

Tough financial times in the city of Chicago. It's a good thing Daley has property tax relief on his mind:

With many city homeowners complaining about their new, higher property tax bills, Mayor Richard Daley will try to get out in front of the issue today by calling on other politicians to do something about it.

The mayor is scheduled for a morning news conference at a South Side field house to suggest that the county assessor and state lawmakers "provide relief for property owners," according to a press release.

Daley frequently has issued such calls in the past, most notably during last year's impasse between Cook County Assessor James Houlihan and House Speaker Micheal Madigan over legislation to cushion the property tax blow for county homeowners.

Houlihan argued for greater tax relief while Madigan wanted a more restrained approach. After arguing for the better part of a year, Madigan came out on top as the version that's now law phases down the tax relief over three years. Earlier this week, Houlihan sought to blame Madigan for the size of the tax bills that hit mailboxes.

At any rate, tax bills are out, payments are due and lawmakers won't be back in Springfield until after the Nov. 4 election, even if they want to take up the complicated issue.

I'm sure some of the job cuts will come from loafing garbage workers:

Mayor Daley on Thursday branded rampant loafing by city garbage crews as "criminal activity" and vowed to "take the necessary steps to fire" the slackers.

"No one should be sleeping, loafing, drinking, quitting early or anything else. This deals with criminal activity. This deals with cheating. This is not overall management. Leaving early, drinking. This is really kind of criminal activity," Daley said.

"They have great jobs. If they don't want the job, just quit. When they identify these individuals, we're going to discipline and fire them. That's what we're going to try to do. We're going to actively go after each one of them because the taxpayers are working hard or not working. They have to pay taxes. They want a worforce that's going to respond."

After a 10-ward, 10-week surveillance, Inspector General David Hoffman concluded that Chicago garbage collection crews work less than six hours a day -- and get "paid to do nothing" for 25 percent of their time on the clock -- costing taxpayers at least $14.3 million-a-year and as much as $21 million when the benefit and equipment costs are factored in.

Just one quick question. Will Chicago remain the city that works will all this financial drama going around?