Mayor Rahm Emanuel won a unanimous vote Wednesday from the City Council for his first annual budget proposal, basking in the kind of support — and near-worshipful rhetoric — that predecessor Richard M. Daley once enjoyed regularly but had found more elusive in recent years.
While many aldermen bemoaned the extensive cuts that will be made in the $6.3 billion spending plan for 2012, the council members employed a string of metaphors to explain why they felt they had no choice but to back Emanuel’s proposal by a 50-0 vote.
Ald. Michele Smith (43rd Ward) said Emanuel’s budget “cuts a broad swath through the old way of doing things.” Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) said it would “set this ship in the right direction.” And Ald. George Cardenas (12th) said, “The cure is not without pain.”
Emanuel echoed those themes in his remarks after the vote.
“We have a strong future,” Emanuel said. “This budget doesn’t run away from it. It chases it.”
Many of the same aldermen who voted for the new mayor’s approach had supported Daley’s plans for most of his 22 years in office. But they now effectively repented their free-spending ways of better economic times and praised Emanuel effusively.
Some council members also said their votes for Emanuel’s agenda overcame misgivings about the cuts because the rookie mayor involved them in the budget process more than they were accustomed to under Daley. Ald. Sandi Jackson (7th) said Emanuel had “handled this with grace and elegance,” an attitude she contrasted to the former White House chief of staff’s reputation for impatience in his career in Washington.
In his comments after the vote, Emanuel, too, emphasized that he had worked with aldermen. In his run for mayor, he had said he did not expect the council to serve as a rubber stamp for his proposals.
“You’re not only taking what I think is a good budget, but with your suggestions making it a better budget,” he said. “On behalf of the whole city to each of you individually, I want to thank you for making this a better budget.”
Ald. Edward Burke (14th), the council’s longest-serving member, said the unanimous vote meant that he won a wager he made with Emanuel.
Among the more unpopular cost-cutting measures approved Wednesday were a reduction of public library hours and staff; the closures of half of the city’s 12 mental health clinics and three police stations; and the layoffs of some dispatchers at the city’s 911 call center.
Emanuel also caught flak for his proposals to bolster the city’s coffers by increasing city vehicle sticker fees, the parking surcharge, the hotel tax and a laundry list of fines for violations such as letting weeds grow too tall and drag racing.
And, in the change that could impact the greatest number of people, water and sewer fees also will increase next year by 25 percent, with further 15 percent hikes in each of the next three years. Emanuel plans on using the money from the fee hikes to help pay for a 10-year plan that will replace all 900 miles of the city’s century-old water pipes and upgrade the sewer system.
Ald. Ariel Reboyras (30th) said those dramatic rate hikes, which also will affect the city’s many water customers in the suburbs, were the most painful part of the budget. But he said, “If we don’t do this, our streets will sink.”
The Daley administration did not so fully address the problem of aging infrastructure, and the former mayor also preferred to balance his budgets with one-time revenues, such as the proceeds of privatizing the Chicago Skyway and the city’s street parking meter system.
“We are on right track for the first time in many, many years,” said Ald. Richard Mell (33rd), a longtime Daley loyalist.
(Read CNC’s series examining the city’s financial pressures)
The cuts this year, while unpleasant, represented “the type of budget the city has needed for several years,” said Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd), who was among the minority of budget hawks in the council during the final years of Daley’s administration.
Drawing favorable comparisons to Daley’s approach, Reilly and other aldermen said they appreciated Emanuel’s willingness to work with them. Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th), a self-described “wild card,” said this year’s budget process marked the first time that she and other council members were able to discuss the mayor’s proposal with the city budget director.
Earlier this month, 28 aldermen sent Emanuel a letter detailing their concerns about his budget plan. Emanuel quickly responded with a series of tweaks that affected only $4.3 million in the city’s day-to-day operating budget, but appeared to placate some critics in the council.
Among the amendments was a compromise on the reduction of library hours. Instead of cutting back hours on Monday and Friday mornings all year, the curtailed hours will be in effect only during the school year.
Organized labor criticized some of the budget’s cost-cutting measures.
“We’re very disappointed that aldermen have voted to reduce access to libraries, cut mental health services, privatize health clinics and cut hundreds of good jobs,” Henry Bayer, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, said in a statement after the vote. “Many aldermen voiced serious concerns about these cuts today. While the vote is over, the work of minimizing these harmful cuts is an ongoing process in which AFSCME and our labor and community allies will be fully engaged.â€
The last time that Daley won a unanimous vote for his budget was in 2006. He also had enjoyed uncontested mandates from the council for his spending plans between 1998 and 2003, when the economy was strong and the city coffers especially benefited from the real estate boom in many neighborhoods.
Yet, even during the best of times, the Daley administration ran deficits, as personnel costs grew dramatically. Emanuel was elected to succeed the retiring Daley in February and he promised to reform city fiscal policy.
Under Emanuel’s first budget proposal, most of the $636 million budget deficit projected for 2012 will be closed with spending cuts that could help avoid such large shortfalls in future years.