City Health Dept., food inspection cuts put public at risk

Sun-Times:

Mayor Daley is inviting restaurants and groceries to cut sanitary corners and putting public health at risk by slashing Health Department spending and reducing Chicago's army of food sanitarians by 23 percent, a union leader is charging.

Henry Bayer, executive director of AFSCME Council 31, said the current staff of 62 food sanitarians is inadequate to respond to thousands of complaints and make annual inspections at 15,000 food establishments.

Daley's proposed 2009 budget would reduce the Food Sanitation Section from 62 employees to 45. Fourteen of the jobs eliminated belong to sanitarians.


"When people go in to a restaurant or grocery store, they want to feel comfortable the food they eat or buy is not going to make them sick," said Bayer, whose union represents Health Department workers. "The role of the city is to make sure that doesn't happen. Chicago would be abdicating that responsibility. It's outrageous that they would jeopardize public health. What happens if there's an outbreak and people get sick as a result of the lack of inspection?"

Daley's budget calls for firing 11 Health Department workers and eliminating 160 vacancies, 38 of them medical providers. Some neighborhood health clinics would lose up to 40 percent of their staff.