Preckwinkle: County has ‘reached moment of truth’ on budget, pop tax
The budget proposal she'll present to sharply divided commissioners amid a loud and sustained backlash counts on the county collecting
Preckwinkle will not provide an alternate spending plan in the event the pop tax is repealed next week, county officials said. Instead, she intends to leave the decision on what gets cut and how deeply to commissioners and separately elected countywide officials, even as she continues to warn in public that such spending reductions would mean laying off doctors and nurses, prosecutors, public defenders, sheriff's officers and jail guards.
The
Preckwinkle moved up her annual budget speech by about a week from when it's typically delivered, and the timing is no coincidence. The address comes just five days before commissioners are scheduled to vote on whether to get rid of the pop tax. The idea is to make them think twice before voting for repeal Tuesday.
"It's a balanced budget as long as there's a soda pop tax," said Commissioner
And so Preckwinkle's address amounts to a public statement as commissioners and lobbyists engage in what Suffredin described as behind-the-scenes "hand-to-hand combat" over the repeal effort.
Asked Wednesday at an unrelated event what would happen if the pop tax money were not available, Preckwinkle turned to her frequent contention that the county would have to "make significant cuts in public health and public safety, because that's where 87 percent of our money goes."
The county's vast public health system includes
Saying that significant cuts in those areas would result from the repeal is a "sky is falling kind of scenario . . . that should not be," said Commissioner
"We're moving, I think, along the track of how do we make the right kind of cuts in a collaborative manner, without devastating the mission of county government to provide for the most vulnerable, the poorest of the poor," he added.
To many commissioners, that seemed high because it amounts to only 5.8 percent of this year's planned
Preckwinkle's proposed budget calls for spending about
The spending increase also is driven by higher wage and benefit costs embedded in union agreements negotiated by the Preckwinkle administration and approved by the
Overall spending -- including grant and special purpose programs funded with dedicated revenue streams, construction costs and equipment purchases -- would increase to nearly
While the health system merger costs are expected to be covered with new Medicaid revenue, other rising costs would be covered with county taxes and fees, including sales tax revenue that's expected to decline as more people shift to online shopping. A new state fee on collecting sales taxes is expected to reduce county revenue by about
The difficult and risky budget situation represents a setback for Preckwinkle, who was hoping to deliver a good-news spending proposal this year ahead of next year's elections. Preckwinkle plans to run for a third and final term, and the seats of all 17 commissioners also are on the ballot.
Instead, the pop tax that was approved 11 months ago -- but didn't go into effect until
Between the Can the
Both sides are gearing up to possibly spend millions of dollars more on
Pop tax opponents say Preckwinkle can find ways to cut
"We're going to have start making tough decisions like our residents and taxpayers of the county have been making for the last decade and find out where we're going to need to tighten our belt to balance our budget," said Commissioner
But Preckwinkle points to
One commissioner standing by Preckwinkle is
"I think that the revenue need is real," said Moore, who added that the pop tax was better than an increase in the property tax, which already is very high in the south suburbs he represents. "I chose the lesser of two evils, and now I'm getting beat up for it."
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