Chicago City Council Rules of Conduct for Public Meetings, 2023-2027.
Pursuant to Rule 58 of the Chicago City Council Rules of Order and Procedure,
the Sergeant-at-Arms sets forth the following rules of conduct for members of the public.
These rules shall be in effect at all times that a viewing gallery or room is open for a meeting of the City Council or any of its committees.
committees all individuals and their belongings are subject to search at entry or upon request
individuals must remain seated at all times except one when entering or exiting the gallery
two when providing public comment during the portion of a meeting set aside for that purpose
or three when asked to rise and be acknowledged by a member of the city council
profane threatening harassing abusive or defamatory behavior or speech which in the judgment of the
meeting's chair or the sergeant at arms may lead to a breach of the peace or disrupt the orderly
conduct of the meeting is not permitted disruptive or distracting actions such as the stomping of
feet, waving of arms, throwing any item, whistling, booing, shouting, or other loud
utterances, are not permitted when in the judgment of the meeting's chair, or the sergeant-at-arms,
such actions are disrupting or impeding the orderly conduct of the meeting.
Any item that poses a potential safety hazards, as determined by the sergeant-at-arms,
is prohibited in the gallery. Such items include, but are not limited to,
1. Any pointed objects, including knives of any kind.
2. Banners, flyers or other forms of signage.
3. Food and beverages, including in glass or metal canisters.
4. Backpacks, large bags and sealed packages.
Clear bags, not tinted in color, that do not exceed 12 inches by 6 inches by 12,
are permitted and subject to search.
And 5. Firearms, ammunition, fireworks, laser pointers, stun guns, tasers, mace pepper spray, and toy weapons.
Cell phones and other small handheld recording devices must be placed in silent mode, can only be used while seated, and can only...
only be used while seated and can only be used in a manner that does not interfere with the ability
other individuals to view or hear the proceedings. Individuals or groups failing to adhere to these
rules will be subject to removal from the remainder of the meeting by the sergeant-at-arms.
City of Chicago City Council Rules of Conduct for Public Meetings, 2023-2027
Pursuant to Rule 58 of the Chicago City Council Rules of Order and Procedure,
the Sergeant-at-Arms sets forth the following rules of conduct for members of the public.
These rules shall be in effect at all times that a viewing gallery or room is open for a meeting of the City Council or any of its committees.
All individuals and their belongings are subject to search at entry or upon request.
Individuals must remain seated at all times except, one, when entering or exiting the gallery.
Two, when providing public comment during the portion of a meeting.
when providing public comment during the portion of a meeting set aside for that purpose or three
when asked to rise and be acknowledged by a member of the city council profane threatening
harassing abusive or defamatory behavior or speech which in the judgment of the meeting's chair or
the sergeant at arms may lead to a breach of the peace or disrupt the orderly conduct of the meeting
is not permitted. Disruptive or distracting actions, such as the stomping of feet, waving of
arms, throwing any item, whistling, booing, shouting, or other loud utterances, are not
permitted when in the judgment of the meeting's chair or the sergeant-at-arms, such actions are
disrupting or impeding the orderly conduct of the meeting. Any item that poses a potential safety
hazards as determined by the sergeant at arms is prohibited in the gallery such items include
but are not limited to one any pointed objects including knives of any kind two banners flyers
or other forms of signage three food and beverages including in glass or metal canisters four
4. Backpacks, large bags, and sealed packages.
Clear bags, not tinted in color, that do not exceed 12 inches by 6 inches by 12, are permitted and subject to search.
And 5. Firearms, ammunition, fireworks, laser pointers, stun guns, tasers, mace pepper spray, and toy weapons.
Cell phones and other small handheld recording devices must be placed in silent mode.
can only be used while seated and can only be used in a manner that does not interfere with
the ability other individuals to view or hear the proceedings. Individuals or groups failing
to adhere to these rules will be subject to removal from the remainder.
will be subject to removal from the remainder of the meeting by the sergeant at arms good morning
ladies and gentlemen and welcome to 2027's budget hearings uh just a few uh things that we will
go over uh we will begin each morning uh with a public comment uh we will today we're starting
at 10 going forward we will start at 9 30 a.m uh going forward for the balance of the days we're
scheduled um this week through thursday and returning the following wednesday and going
through through the following tuesday that's the tentative schedule for right now uh every morning
we will take our um attendance as it relates to speaking but once you are on the record uh for
any one meeting you are queued in for all of the meetings from a quorum perspective as this will
be one continuous meeting. We will by and large go by seniority as those who've been here and on a
daily basis as we gavel in. This will be our official count for that. If you come in afterwards
we'll just try to work everybody in. However if you have a specific concern issue you've got
something that you got to do please just let us know and we will work to you know adjust to
allow everybody to do what they need to do. I know we all have extremely busy schedules.
need to do i know we all have extremely busy schedules and uh ward matters to attend to so
we want to be as flexible as possible while while still uh you know keeping in line with our
respective uh items that we have so we're going to begin this morning with uh public comment
uh how many we have we have 15 members for public comment uh
okay well since we don't know you have 15 exactly we'll do two minutes per person
for the 15 minutes, and we're going to begin with Peter Lara.
Peter Lara, two minutes.
My apologies.
Go ahead.
I forgot to take roll call.
We'll take the roll.
LaSpada, Alderman Dow, Alderman Robinson, Alderman Yancey.
Did I see Yancey?
Alderman Mitchell, Alderman Harris, Alderman Beal, Alderman Ramirez,
Audubon Quinn, Audubon Lopez, Audubon Moore, Audubon O'Shea, Audubon Mosley, Audubon Rodriguez, Audubon Scott, Audubon Cicho Lopez, Audubon Burnett, Audubon Telia Farrell, Audubon Cardona, Audubon Rodriguez-Sanchez, Audubon Conway, Audubon Quezada, Audubon Villegas, Audubon Mintz,
Audubon Sposato, Audubon Nugent, Audubon Vasquez, Audubon Napolitano, Audubon Riley, Audubon Knutson, Audubon Martin, Audubon Hatton, Audubon Silverstein, Vice Chair Lee, Chair and Ms. President, we have a total of 19 members present, of 20 members.
Okay.
All right.
That's Yancey makes 20.
Chair Dow makes 21.
Did we miss anyone?
Non-members.
Non-members Cruz.
Any other non-members?
Amanda Hoppenworth.
Fuentes.
Wagenspeck.
Any other non-members?
Okay.
Well, we do have a quorum.
With 20 members, 21 members.
All right.
Time is now for public comment.
Mr. Lara, you ready?
You have two minutes, sir.
This time, two minutes because we have 15 speakers.
Well, typical we're starting late in this meeting.
Just typical.
Six-figure salaries.
And look at this.
Everyone shows up late again.
on the chicagoan taxpayer dime who would have thought of that
also took a look where's the agenda oh is it too big is it too big to show to the public on what
the city is spending what you people are putting on the table that's not accessible to the public
what do you call that that's tyranny they are pushing their socialist agenda
And it's definitely, it is severely dangerous because they're lying to so many Chicagoans.
Do you really think that it's ethical that the finance department had such a drastic increase of over 100% in their funding?
now what do you call that
that is fraud
that is stealing
our taxpayer money
and of course nobody's listening to me
because you know
I'm right
I'm speaking up for the people of Chicago
like I've came
for thousands of times
hundreds of times
and I will continue to speak up
on these issues
because
none of this should be hidden just like the parking meters just like all these taxes that
everyone wants to put on for us people are getting poor they can't pay for this stuff
but none of you see it that way because y'all get paid the big bucks how dare you it's disgraceful
disgusting we need to change thank you for your comments i want to recognize alderman harris who's
joined us for the purposes of quorum. Next, we will have Alex Goldenberg, followed by
Mark Clements, also recognized Alderman in the midst for the purposes of quorum.
Good morning. My name is Alex Goldenberg. I live in Little Village, work with United Working
Families. I'm here today to stand in support with survivors of police torture and misconduct.
In this budget, there is a $480 million bond to pay survivors what they owed.
I'm standing here today to speak out in support of you all voting to make survivors whole to the extent that you are able to.
that you are able to um borrowing to pay for this is something that past mayors have done
um really the city only really started to pay this through the corporate fund when lightfoot
had a huge influx of covid money we are not in that situation right now this is an extenuating
circumstance this is cases that have been building up for years that we actually applaud the
administration for resolving in a more timely way which ultimately will save the taxpayers money
and so we cannot balance budgets on the backs of survivors of police torture that's wrong
um it's wrong you know morally for how we treat the people that the city has turned its back on
and it's wrong for taxpayers again this is actually the fiscally responsible way to handle
this so we know that many uh in this body are reaching for various reasons to oppose this
mayor's budget uh i'm here to stand today to let you know that this is off the table this is toxic
this will come to haunt you to not oppose paying for these police settlements and misconduct
that is the right thing to do so i'm standing with the mayor who's investing in youth jobs
who's investing in reopening mental health clinics these are investments in communities
that we cannot cut and so there's no other way to pay for this than borrowing there's just no other
thank you for your comment i want to recognize alderman felix cardona for the purposes of quorum
Next, we have Mark Clements, followed by Abier Miner.
Hello and good morning.
My name is Mark Clements.
I am a Chicago police torture survivor.
police torture survivor, I'm asking for this city council to have a heart.
I see Mr. Lopez disappeared, but you can give him my message.
This is a shame.
We had black and brown families in this same chamber back in the 70s, 80s, 90s, early 2000s, screaming for their loved ones to be given a measure of justice.
The measure of justice was shelled out with decades of incarceration, releasing men and women out of our prison.
Don't need your mic.
With a bus ticket and $10.
Mr. Clements, Mr. Clements, I need you to speak into the mic because you've got people listening online.
Oh, they can hear that too.
But saying that they can make it, that's an insult.
You come from the west side of the city of Chicago, Altamund.
And won't we tell you, you already know how those men and women have had to suffer coming out of a prison.
Imagine if you are wrongfully convicted and you are put inside of a prison.
if you're beat, if you're
terrorized, if you're tortured.
But
here we have a
city council
that now has to come
up with a solution
how to make it right.
This was
40 years ago.
My little
old mother.
mother. Thank you for your comments. Thank you for your comments. Two minutes. Thank you for
your comment. Next we have Arbier Minor. Next we have Arbier Minor followed by Jasmine Smith.
Hello, my name is Arbier Minor. I am speaking on behalf of United Working Families
and I'm standing in alignment with Chicago tortured victims and survivors.
This morning, we did a press conference where they told us their stories.
We just heard one today.
They are here.
They are living, breathing Chicagoans, and they deserve the justice that the court has
settled and decided that the court has granted them.
We cannot cut our way out of $480 million, okay, worth of settlement money.
And it's not okay for any Chicagoan to have to then swaddle the debt or pay that bill
on the backs of youth jobs, mental health, clinics in our communities, or any other provision that
is currently in the budget. It is not fair that we have to continue to agree with the divestment
in our community because we do not want to pay survivors what they are duly owed. We are in the
wrongful conviction capital of the United States. There are several settlements that not only happen
today but are going to come down the pipeline and it's not okay that my that my community my people
as well as survivors then have to have a lower quality of life because they was harmed by this
system we have to find a way to make sure that the chicago police department is taking ownership
of the harm that they have done to our communities and if we do not have 26 votes to then
And if we do not have 26 votes to then look into the Chicago Police Department's appropriation and budget, which is the largest budget in the city of Chicago currently, and it's going to grow, then it should not come off of my back, the back of my sisters, my siblings, or these tortured survivors.
Please pay them what they're duly owed with the recommendation that is on the table.
And then let's work together for a longer term solution.
Thank you.
Thank you for your comment.
want to recognize
non-member
Tabaris, also
Alderman Rodriguez
as well as
Alderman Burnett for the purposes
of quorum.
Next we have Jasmine Smith
followed by
John Peller.
Jasmine Smith
with Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political
Repression. I am also the loved
one of survivors Rico Clark
and Lester Owens. Many of you all heard me
time and time again about these cases but this is a fair warning right if you don't have another
solution to settle these cases immediately it's only right to go with what the mayor has proposed
that's just common sense because it ain't gonna make sense to cut anything that's dealing with
the community to build a community that he's proposed or trying to take back of what he's
put in the community so if you don't have another solution let's just borrow the money because
you've been borrowing already, just keep borrowing. And then another solution is to finally hold the
police accountable. This is 18 cases by one detective. I got three detectives. That's part
of my loved ones, right? That's the third generation. John Foster, who is the commander
over Area 5, which is five different police districts right now. Kevin Eberle, who's the
detective for the apprehensive use of um fbi task force and then you got uh brian p forberg who
Brian P. Forberg, who's
back on the force. He was forced
to retire, but now he's back working
behind the desk. All three of these
detectives got 60 cases
of people that's
been wrongfully convicted. False
confessions. I got 25
cases back in court right now that we're
fighting, and we're going to win it.
That's
under three more detectives that's still on the force.
Fire them. Take they
pensions. Sue FOP.
Do what you got to do. If you're going to fight against what the mayor proposed, find other ways that's going to make the city and these detectives think twice about corruption when you start holding the people accountable from day one of what they did wrong.
Stop fighting these cases. The state's attorneys need to stop fighting cases and selling them.
The longer you fight them, the more you got to pay.
Thank you for your comments. Next, we have John Peller, followed by Gina Lamar Evans.
Good morning, Alders. My name is John Peller, president and CEO of AIDS Foundation Chicago.
In partnership with the city and state health departments, we lead Getting to Zero Illinois,
which aims to end the HIV epidemic in Chicago and the state by 2030. HIV remains a serious
problem in Chicago with over 800 people newly diagnosed in 2024. We are seeing a decline for
2025, which looks promising. I'm here today on behalf of 23 organizations that are delegates
of CDPH. We are here because the city of Chicago failed to spend $36 million in federal funding
over five years from 2020 to 2025. That money, $36 million, was returned to the Treasury,
the federal government. This represents thousands of hours of outreach, HIV screening and diagnosis,
mental health services, food and nutrition, medical visits, just to name a few services.
medical visits, just to name a few services. We've had very productive meetings with the
mayor's office, Dr. Walker and his team at CDPH, and the comptroller's office to address these
causes. I'm here to ask the budget office to change one of their practices that is driving
this underspending. Every year, whenever there is a federal continuing resolution, which has been
every year, and in fiscal year 2025, we had three of them. We have one already this year.
The Budget Office refuses to let CDPH issue a full-year contract for spending.
This means that we have no way to plan, we have no way to know how much money is coming our way,
and we struggle with multiple budget revisions that every time take months to be resolved
because the city of Chicago's contracting system is deeply broken.
Please, Budget Office, update your contracting systems and issue full-year contracts to CDPH HIV delegate agencies.
Thank you.
Thank you for your comments.
Next, Gina Lamar Evans, followed by Marilyn Molero.
Good morning.
I'm Gina Lamar Evans of Nephew's Case Management, which also happens to be an HIV agency that serves the community on the south and west sides of Chicago.
I'm here to talk about the taxation of online gambling and gaming and what
that's doing to the community and I'm seeing it in real time with our patients
so as an recovering online I'm not online casino gambler one of the things
that I look at is the the online portion of it that does not include faces and
being places so you're just on your phone and you're simply doing the online
and you don't see the money necessarily leaving you, right?
And so it's detrimental to families, and we see that on our end
because when it's time for them to pay bills,
they're having difficulties with it.
So I just believe that if we tax it, we could slow it down.
And the younger people, what we've shown in studies is that gambling and gaming, the dopamine is mirrored to cocaine and other drugs, right?
Once that happens, we recognize there's kind of no coming back from it.
So one of the things that I am asking is that we all stand together and look at taxing the billionaires and valleys and all of those things just to slow it down.
We are seeing in our communities the effects, and we don't always recognize it.
We've talked about with the lottery and how it would help with education, and we see that doesn't necessarily work the way we thought it would.
So with online gaming and watching it grow and coming faster into the community and to younger people who are able to get online and not necessarily tell their correct age,
We are asking, I am asking, and we as a community are asking that you all tax the billionaires and bet on Chicagoans.
Thank you.
Thank you for your comments.
Next, we have Marilyn Malero, followed by Tulsi McDaniels.
Hello, everyone.
I am Marilyn Malero.
I am a survivor from the Guevara and Helverson.
i was compensated and with that certificate of innocent money i created my own wrongful
conviction trauma center logo here i could have used that money and spend it and bought me a home
but i didn't i created a woman's home for women that were wrongfully convicted
the imperishable restoration home politicians don't some of these politicians i'm not going
to say ah, because when I reopened my house for my grand opening, only one person showed
up, one politician showed up, and that was Senator Okino and his representative to come
and his representative to come support me in my mission, in my cause, because I have
a purpose here.
And my purpose is to fight for those that are wrongfully convicted.
So I open my home that are for women that are wrongfully convicted and 10-year plus.
So I stand here before you to say, I am not a part of this 18, this budget that's going
through that the mayor has proposed, because I'm independent.
it, but I am here in support that this budget do get passed because we've been traumatized
and we continue to be trauma by situations like this that we have to keep reliving over
and over.
When is enough enough?
When are you guys going to say, finally, let's do something that is right?
Let's fix what was wrong by others that were crooked.
When are they going to get their diligent to serve their time?
When are they going to be?
But you know what?
I said to myself, I'm a believer in God.
I'm going to leave it in God's hand.
God will take care of those people that did us wrong.
That's the only way that I'm going to move forward in my life,
knowing that I'm doing the right thing by the right people,
by helping those that are still wrongfully convicted in prison.
I thank you, and please, help us in this budget.
We need trauma.
We need therapy.
We need counseling.
And no one is.
Thank you for your comments.
I want to recognize Alderman Curtis, who has joined us.
Now I remember Curtis.
Next, we have Tulsi McDaniels, followed by George Blakemore.
That's just my name is Tulsi with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.
We are asking city council members to stand with survivors of police torture.
The stain on Chicago's legacy where black and brown men and women on the south and west side were disappeared, tortured, and locked up for crimes that they did not commit after forced false confessions.
We are asking that city council pass the budget for the young people who spent decades of their life imprisoned, taken from their families, and left with the emotional and the psychological trauma sustained via the torture tactics that Burge learned through his time at the Vietnam War, in the Vietnam War, and then passed to three generations of torture cops. Shame.
Guevara regularly disappeared people from the west side taking them to black sites locking them
up to radiators and beating them that ain't right this is Chicago's history of policing that haunts
us today how do we make that right how do we get back 27 years of life when you're imprisoned for
a crime you did not commit you don't organizations like the Chicago Alliance and the Torture Justice
Center are organizing and leading the movement that demands justice for survivors of police
torture. The Alliance fought to address these crimes directly through the passage of ECPS.
Seventh Police District Council Member Dion McGill said this will not go away if we don't
deal with the settlement now. These are settlements years in the making as a result of history of
racist policing. Why should
this land on taxpayers' shoulders?
There is no alternative
to borrowing. Survivors need
to be paid what they are owed.
Thank you. Thank you for your comments.
Next, George
Blakemore, followed by
Giav Staskunis.
Racism.
Talking about
police abuse.
Racism.
In the school.
Throughout
the city of chicago and america of america is racist america is racist did you
Did you know white folks live longer than black people?
In the health department.
In all these departments.
What's the big issue?
Everybody coming up with the budget.
And Joe Ferguson, the Civic Federation.
Somebody needs to come in and do an investigation on all of y'all.
All of you are the same.
is a one-party system.
Racism!
Black and brown.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
Let's not go brown now.
They were never enslaved over here.
Let's keep it simple.
Black.
Black.
Jordan Burr.
And you, Mr. Blakemore,
when they pick you up
and tell you you can't sell
in a certain area,
what, that police get that handcuff
and just crushing on my arms.
why would he do that why would he do that like that I'm black racism is a big
problem you can say it over and over sir you mr. Lopez and talking about other
ladies say she's not black I mean that other Mexican lady it's racism in a
culture at the bottom of the socioeconomic status in a caste system. The blacks, not the browns,
the blacks. Racism. Say it again. Racism. Racism against black people. Use a race card.
Thank you for your comments. Next, we'd have Giev Staskunis,
Followed by River
Argoulian
Hold on, before you speak
Young man, let me want to add
to add alderman hopkins for the purposes as a non-member and then alder knutson for the purposes
of quorum as well as non-member lawson you may proceed sir morning chairman ervin and members
of the committee first of all congratulations everyone we are now on track to keep pushing
Chicago deeper into debt, having the next generation to pay the bill. That is absurd.
We cannot keep treating our children's future like a credit card with no spending limit.
I applaud the 29 older persons who signed a letter to the mayor demanding better
from this budget. They are right to insist that we address Chicago's structural deficit
instead of relying on temporary fixes that simply push into the future.
According to the Civic Foundation, Chicago borrowed over $512 million in 2026 to cover
costs, including retroactive salaries.
These principal payments on the debt are scheduled to begin in 2029, and it will cost the city
more than $100 million annually.
Think about that.
we are making decisions today that leave future taxpayers with even more bills to pay.
And the $882.4 million projected budget deficit for the 2027 budget should be a clear warning sign.
Chicago continues to face a structural imbalance between recurring revenue and recurring spending.
So where is the long-term plan?
Where is the commitment to stop borrowing for ordinary operating expenses?
Where is the guarantee that we will not be standing here next year asking the same question
if the budget is going to be balanced and if there's going to be a deficit?
Where is that guarantee?
This is not about cutting essential services or programs.
It's about making sure those services
remain financially sustainable
instead of financing today's problems
with tomorrow's money.
It makes no sense.
Chairman Irvin and members of this committee,
future generations deserve better.
Thank you for your comments.
I want to recognize Alderman Robinson
for the purposes of quorum.
Next, we have River
Argulian followed by Patrick Doerr. Hello my name is River Argelon and I'm a student at the
University of Illinois Chicago and a Chicago resident. I am here to echo the demands of the
Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, the Chicago Torture Justice Center
and their allies and support the budget proposed by Mayor Brandon Johnson. This budget is of
utmost importance in the fight for justice of survivors of police torture and wrongful
convictions in this city. There are hundreds of men and women imprisoned on bogus charges who
deserve to be free. No amount of money can repay these survivors and bring full justice to them
for the years of life they have lost in prison for crimes that they did not commit.
The settlements proposed in this budget not only allow for funding to continue to go towards
community needs like youth jobs and mental health services, but are also short-term loans that will
be paid back in five to seven years, making them responsible investments that benefit Chicagoans
in the long term. Chicago mayors
have always borrowed to pay for
settlements similar to these. Supporting this budget
is not about responsibility, but for
fighting for justice for survivors.
The city of Chicago owes a debt to those who
have been wrongfully convicted, and this budget
is a step in the right direction to paying those debts.
Thank you. Thank you
for your comments. Next, we have Patrick
Doerr, followed by Jessica Jackson.
Good morning, members
of the Budget Committee, Chairman Irvin
and other
uh other city council members attending here today my name is pat door speaking for the
hospitality business association chicago at chamber of commerce for hospitality businesses
including bars restaurants breweries and local alcohol retailers and their suppliers and thank
you to mr blakemore for filming me from my good side uh i'm here today because for the third year
in a row the city budget includes an increase in our already regionally leading alcohol tax hikes
were more expensive than all of Cook County and the surrounding suburbs, and this budget includes
a doubling of the new off-premise sales tax on beer, wine, and spirits. For those scoring at home
this summer, the sales tax, even after the grocery tax was eliminated by the state government,
is 10.5% on all beer, wine, and was 10.5%. With the current new liquor tax passed by this body
last year, it is 12%, far higher than the surrounding suburbs and other counties. And
if the mayor's proposal isn't accepted by this body, it will go to 13.5% sales tax on beer,
wine, and spirits. That's a wallop of a sales tax on our corner stores, grocery stores,
and craft breweries. Not to make light of our retail vacancy problem, but since they peaked
a decade ago we are down 180 liquor licensed off-premise stores those are more empty storefronts
fewer grocery stores fewer full-service corner stores who can serve your communities because it
is far less expensive to buy beer wine and spirits for your tailgate parties and family gatherings
outside of the city of chicago and this budget makes that problem worse
the last point i would hit uh very quickly is we are a center of the beverage alcohol industry
nonetheless with multiple corporate headquarters and thousands of jobs so please reject mayor
johnson's proposed alcohol tax in his 2027 budget thank you for your time thank you for your comments
want to recognize
I want to recognize Alderman Citro-Lopez, who has joined.
Next, we have Jessica Jackson, followed by Rocio Garcia.
So we're going into another budget season with the same old washed over and over story.
We're getting ready to act like this is about an argument over corporate hair tax and whether
the tax the rich and all this and that.
When we know that the reality is that this city is underwater financially and has been underwater now for the fourth year going into budget because of all the money that was spent on illegal immigration.
Now, you all are going to sit here and act like that's not what has driven our city into financial ruins, because that's the agenda of the Democratic Party, locally and nationally, to just flood our cities, flood our communities with a bunch of illegal immigrants that have not put any money into this country, but have taken plenty and plenty money out of it.
So to continue to talk about corporate head attacks and refuse to do a forensic audit is nothing but another scam.
And to sit up here and keep doing press conferences every year with the same old alderman getting in front of the camera, acting like you're trying to resolve this, like you're trying to go against the mayor, it's nothing but a front.
Because if you all were going against the mayor, you would have stopped his spending midstream years ago.
And would not have let it gotten this far.
And in terms of these police cases, get to the core of the problem.
The core of the problem is corrupt court records.
These people are getting locked up in abuse because judges and district attorneys, just like what they're doing in my case, is filling the court records with a bunch of distorted information.
records with a bunch of distorted information and the judges are not doing anything about it
it's public corruption and you all already know it if you want to stop police brutality anything
else stop the crooked judges stop the white collar crime but you don't want to do that because a lot
of them are your friends and you all participate in the wrong doing with them so thank you for your
comments uh our final speaker this morning is rocio garcia good morning my name is rocio
Garcia. I live in Little Village in the 22nd Ward and I've lived in Chicago all my life. I grew up
seeing kids get dropped off or get picked up on one side of the neighborhood and then got dropped
off by the other side in the other side of the neighborhood. My brother was like seven years old
and he was playing in the water. What do they call the water hydrants? And the bigger guys were like,
hey, why don't you raise it? So he did. And what did a cop do? A cop went and put my little brother,
my seven-year-old brother, into the backseat of a pop car. That is a type of trauma. That's the
type of incidents and experiences that create trauma for small children. And that is a type
of abuse that cops, police officers take on that later on turn into much worse torture and violence.
And that gets accepted into systems that do not work for people across Chicago. There is no doubt
There is plenty evidence to demonstrate the type of abuse that has systemically happened in Chicago and we continue to allow.
I stand here in full support together with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and the Chicago Torture Justice Center.
Center. And I am speaking to the ways in which we're thinking about the budget, right? When we're
talking about fiscal responsibility, when we're talking about the borrowing, we're completely
eliminating how we're talking or thinking about the people who live their lives struggling without
their family members, their family members being in lockup while they missed out being present for
their families, for their children, for their loved ones. And so when we talk about borrowing
$480 million to pay settlements and judgments, are we completely forgetting about the lives lost
of those people who were locked up? You know, there's no way that people can ever get that time
back, that their families could. Thank you for your comments. This concludes public comment for
today. Today we have before us our CFO, our budget director, and comptroller. So in
acting director Ernst, our CFO Ashley Gabrish, and our comptroller Michael Belsky. If you can
introduce yourselves and introduce the members in the box for the record and then begin with
your opening statement, after which we will go into our Q&A.
We're going to put 10 minutes on the clock for round one.
If you need a round two, please let me know.
Our opening questions will begin with our finance committee chair, Pat Dow,
after which our second member will be from the 90s.
Wow.
You're from the 90s, bro.
You don't want to go first?
You want to go first?
You do not.
Okay.
All right.
It's okay.
Let me know when you're ready.
All right.
That's fine.
Okay.
From there, you may proceed.
Also, I want to recognize Autumn McClay.
I recognize Alderman Clay, non-member joining us.
Good morning, everyone.
My name is Jonathan Ernst,
and I am the acting budget director for the city of Chicago.
With me today in the box,
I have managing deputy budget director, Kevin Murphy,
who's over workforce management and technology.
Matthew Schmitz, managing budget director
of capital and grants management.
and Deputy Budget Director Giovanni Maffiello, who oversees our revenue team.
Good morning. My name is Ashley Gabrish. I am the city's CFO.
With me today in the box are Brendan White, Deputy CFO,
Chip Hastings, who oversees our concession agreements,
and Vigiovanni Darvowski, who heads our parking meter deals.
Thank you. Good morning. Michael Belsky, City Comptroller. In the box today, we have First Deputy Joel Flores, Managing Deputy Comptroller for Financial Strategy and Operations, Alexis Long. Brian Carlson, Deputy Director for Tax Enforcement and Administration. And then Chuck Billows, our Deputy Director for Street Operations.
hello again thank you chairman irvin vice chair lee uh the distinguished members of the committee
on budget and government operations and the entire city council for having
and the entire city council for having me here today my name is Jonathan Ernst
and I have the honor of serving as the city's acting budget director alongside
the 52 hard-working talented public servants who comprise the staff at the
Office of Budget and Management I've had the great privilege of serving the
people of Chicago for the past 22 years it began I began my career with the city
of Chicago at the Department of Streets and Sanitation 22 years ago, first serving
in operations roles and then assuming a fiscal position. In 2013 I transitioned
to the Department of Family and Sports Services as the department's deputy
commissioner of finance and ultimately as the first deputy commissioner. I came to
the Office of Budget and Management in 2024, where I served as OBM's first Deputy Budget
Director for two budget cycles before assuming the role of Acting Budget Director earlier
this year. In each of my roles with the city, I've worked hands-on with Chicago's annual
budgets, either by developing departmental budget priorities, supporting commissioners
in the execution of their budget targets
or by managing the development
of the city's overall budget,
now for a third year.
I stand behind the fiscal year
FY27 budget recommendation
that was introduced to this body last Wednesday,
Chicago's fair share budget.
This is a balanced budget
built upon sound revenue
and expenditure projections
that close the FY27 gap responsibly
through prudent organizational improvements
coupled with data-proven structural revenue solutions.
Despite significant fiscal headwinds,
fiscal headwinds, including rising costs, long-standing structural challenges, as well
as extraordinary one-time expenses resulting from legacy litigation, the city's financial
outlook is growing ever stronger, given the actions taken to balance this budget.
To walk you through how this budget was balanced, first in addition to the $882.4 million budget
gap additional expenses were included in the FY27 budget not anticipated in the forecast
including 131.5 million in new investments plus another 36.1 million in additional expenses
between those three figures the need to identify 1.03 billion between savings
and efficiencies and new revenue were necessary to balance this budget
This budget realizes $85.4 million in operational efficiencies, $34.4 million in personnel savings,
$266 million in savings from funding settlements and judgments using bonds,
and $664.2 million in increased revenues, including additional tax increment financing surplus,
improved revenue projections, revenue enhancements, and one-time revenues from the parking meter sale
and the catalyst fund. During this administration, the city has been resolute across departments to
maximize every public dollar and do more with the resources we have. Over the three prior budgets
of this administration, OBM has worked with city departments to realize more than $740 million
in cost savings. And on top of that, for next year, there's an additional $120 million in savings.
an additional 120 million in savings this brings the total over the four-year period to over 860
million dollars these cost savings have been achieved without layoffs or cuts to vital services
that residents count on while we are always looking for new opportunities to improve and
streamline city government closing the city's gap through efficiencies alone would be challenging
without a significant impact to vital services for residents
and forcing layoffs upon our hard-working public servants.
We must turn to new structural solutions in revenue.
When building any year's budget, the talented team at OBM
follows the data to determine the viability of revenues.
Our revenue team consistently examines progress of the FY26 revenues throughout the year,
publishing monthly revenue reports on our website reflecting their performance and looking at future
projections. Based on the data and it and in addition to analysis of the growth of the economic
sectors these revenues represent we are confident in the expectations contained in this budget.
While the formal appropriation process with city council begins in the fall our work at OBM to
build the FY27 budget began in June. As with previous years, and in coordination
with the Mayor's Office of Community Engagement, OBM held a series of
community engagement sessions, hearing from hundreds of residents across the
city firsthand about their concerns, needs, and priorities in next year's
budget. Residents were direct and clear in communicating with us, especially
about their preferences for sources of revenue the fair share budget includes
their feedback in August OBM embarked upon a collaborative effort to
a collaborative effort to engage every city department to develop their departmental budgets
that reflect the realities of their work while striving, in each case, to streamline operations.
Critical to this exercise, the administration also engaged the members of this body through
collaborative sessions to discuss the needs of your constituents. Your feedback, too,
is incorporated in this budget the fair share budget makes targeted investments in areas that
residents and city council members identified as priorities those include bolstering community
violence intervention expanding the care team reopening an additional city-run mental health
clinic increasing capacity at streets and sanitation by doubling the quality of life team
adding forestry teams to trim 15,000 more trees
and being better equipped to respond to emergencies
and expanding road and control operations.
Additionally, this budget fully funds the Chicago Public Libraries
without raising property taxes.
It invests further in homelessness services
to ensure more than 3,000 Chicagoans either gain housing or keep their home.
This budget retains the city's commitment to the Community Justice Initiative
and the Legal Protection Fund,
and this budget provides the funding to hire more than 40,000 young people
for paid positions through the Chicago Youth Works.
Across every community engagement session this year,
and reflected in surveys and focus groups
conducted by the Chicago Financial Futures Task Force,
residents expressed a strong desire for revenue options
that tasked corporations with contributing more.
task corporations with contributing more towards Chicago's long-term financial solutions.
The fair share budget is responsible to those calls from residents with the Equitable Employer
Tax, or EET, which is balanced with the SEED tax credit.
While the EET is a new source of revenue focused on the largest corporate operators in our
City. The seed credit provides companies a monthly credit for each employee whose
primary workplace is in a socio-economically disadvantaged area
incentivizing investment in these communities. The fair share budget also
addresses harms of the past. Chicago faces significant costs associated with
legacy settlements and judgment cases due to a backlog of cases. To provide
complete visibility in into the considerable anticipated expenses related to settlements
and judgments this year the initial FY 27 budget forecast included these full costs as though they
would be supported with operating funding in FY 27 budget settlements and judgment costs above
what has consistently been covered with operating funds are supported as they have in years past
with bond funding as these costs are not expected to be ongoing at this level the city has proposed
the responsible action to spread these costs over time using an accelerated amortization schedule
the goal is to manage these costs responsibly while maintaining the city's ability to fund
essential services and meet its ongoing obligations the Department of Law estimates that offering
settlements for these legacy cases will save the city between 300 and 400 million compared to
protected protracted litigation this year's budget arrives at an inflection point for our city
city. While rising costs and federal pressures are placing increased strain on Chicago, the fair share
budget not only meets those challenges without service reductions or layoffs, it invests in the
futures of our city's communities, planting the seeds for safer, more affordable, more financially
stable chicago for years to come i want to give a heartfelt thank to thank you to the entire team
at the office of budget management for their steadfast tireless efforts to ensure this budget
is balanced responsible and will within withstand the test of time chairman vice chair council
members and chicagoans thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today and for
your collaboration throughout this democratic process i look forward to questions and to our
continued work to achieve our shared goals for the city of chicago thank you director cfo
good morning chairman ervin vice chair lee members of the committee of the full city council
and my fellow chicagoans
thank you for the opportunity to walk through the city's fiscal position
and the fiscal 2027 budget the budget before you reflects significant pressures on the city's
finances higher fuel and energy costs changes in federal policy and funding rising settlement and
judgment costs and pension liabilities that are among the high the highest of any local
government in this country in my opening remarks i will focus on the areas of my office that my
office is responsible for the city's debt its pension obligations and its overall financial
and its overall financial condition i will present this information plainly and the numbers as they
are to assure that the city council has the complete information necessary to navigate the
fiscal 2027 budget in the fiscal 2027 forecast we included the full cost of settlements and
judgments in the corporate budget. The fiscal 2027 budget proposal includes financing for $266
million of those costs with taxable general obligation bonds, which the city plans to
amortize over a short duration of five to seven years. We have made the decision to seek authority
to bond out for costs we're carrying forward in fiscal 2026 of $120 million, $130 million
of costs for the first half of the Guevara settlement in 2027, and $130 million in 2028
for the second half of the Guevara settlement. And lastly, for an additional $100 million for
additional settlement costs that we expect and that have been approved in 2027 while the authority
being asked for is 480 million only 350 million of that is what the city plans to bond out for
in fiscal 2027 with the remaining 130 million being bonded out for in fiscal 2028 corresponding
to the second half of the Guevara settlement.
We plan to borrow in the most fiscally responsible manner possible
with, again, short-duration, five- to seven-year bonds and level debt.
five to seven year bonds and level debt service to put this in perspective and to in contrast
there are bonds issued by prior administrations for settlements and judgments that included
30 and 12 year maturities with interest that bore interest rates of over six percent and seven
percent respectively there is real fiscal strength in the city's position and it deserves to be
stated plainly first pensions and i just hear me out here the city will make its full statutory
pension payment of 2.58 billion dollars and an additional supplemental pension payment of 363
million dollars above what the law requires for a total pension contribution of more than 2.9
billion dollars in the proposed fiscal 2027 budget the city began making supplemental pension
payments in 2023 every dollar above the statutory minimum reduces the city's overall unfunded
liability and the supplemental pension payments lower our future required contributions
and we all know that rating agencies have taken positive action due to those supplemental pension
payments casino revenue from the permanent bally's facility expected expected to open in the first
half of 2027 is dedicated by state law to the police and fire funds which will provide two of
the lowest funded city pensions with a dedicated revenue stream the very recent closing of the
chicago parking meter transaction makes 75 million 75 million dollars
75 million dollars available for the city's pensions this is a one-time amount and per the
amended the third amended agreement second market access this fall the city completed a 1.3 billion
dollar transaction in a difficult market investors continue to engage with chicago
when Chicago shows up with transparent fiscal information and keeping that confidence with
investors and the public is central to everything we do in my office. Third, transparency. The
taxable general obligation bond ordinance introduced with the budget would strengthen
the city's disclosure to this council. My office would deliver a quarterly report to the Committee
on finance on bonds issued authorized and not yet issued and commercial paper and lines of credit
spending posted publicly in a searchable format before any bond ordinance is approved my office
would deliver a debt transaction disclosure package to the committee on finance and the
city's legal and financial professionals would attend the hearing before the committee on finance
considers any proposed settlement my office would inform the committee in writing of how exactly
it would be funded these measures put the information this council needs in front of it
before it votes not after i wanted to thank my team in the department of finance for their work
on this budget and throughout the year with an especial thank you to my administrator
Maria Rodriguez for whom without her I would not be able to do this job I also
want to thank acting budget director Jonathan Ernst and the office of
management budget budget and management
budget budget and management for their work preparing it i also want to thank chairman
urban vice chair lee and the members of this body for your work debating and debil deliberating on
the fiscal 2027 budget it is my belief that in disagreement becomes better outcomes
chicago's fiscal challenges are real and so are the solutions investors rating agencies
and residents will judge it by how much of the budget solutions recur, how will we
deal with our long-term liabilities, and whether the numbers hold. My commitment to this committee
is simple. The numbers you receive from my office will be complete and accurate,
and I look forward to working with each of you, and I'm happy to take your questions.
Thank you, CFO. Comptroller Belsky?
Good morning, Chairman Irvin, Vice Chair Lee, and distinguished members of the Committee on Budget and Government Operations.
Thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today and discuss the 2027 budget on behalf of the Department of Finance.
The budget is the most important policy document adopted by any city government.
as city leaders all of us up on this dais as well as each member of the city council
share a responsibility provide the resources necessary to provide chicagoans with a high
quality of life i'm grateful mayor brandon johnson has given me the opportunity to serve
the people of chicago and help build a safer more affordable and united city
I introduced my staff. I think when I was first confirmed, I mentioned to you that I had been in your shoes as a local official.
you that I had been in your shoes as a local official. They don't do their work alone. They
are joined by 575 dedicated people, and I hope I'm responsive to you when you call with matters
pertaining to the Department of Finance, but I can tell you when you call me on the weekend and
evenings, I'm often calling them, so I'm grateful to them, and I thank them for that.
The Department of Finance is what I call a linchpin-type department.
We interface with numerous stakeholders, including all city departments, employees,
elected officials, pensioners, businesses, not-for-profit organizations, rating agencies,
investors, and most important, Chicago residents.
in fiscal year 2026 the city council provided us with additional resources to advance our mission
in revenue and debt collection parking and vehicle safety enforcement financial reporting
payment processing and risk management i am pleased to report back to this body
that there has been a return on that investment in 2026 in aggregate total revenues increased
by 500 million year over year. I'd like to share some more granular results from 2026 that helped
us get to that figure, as well as our goals and aspirations for 2027. Throughout the past year,
we have ensured better coordination across city departments in order to maximize our debt
collection efforts. We established a standing revenue committee on collections along with DOL's
collections operations administrative litigation division in order to track our
progress and measure it through key performance.
and measure it through key performance indicators.
We have seen real results.
80% of the debt the city collects is collected within three years.
In FY26, through the expansion of the Smart Streets pilot,
increasing parking enforcement aids,
filling vacancies in tax auditing,
and making investments in payment technology,
DOF was able to bring in $118 million in additional revenues. I especially want to highlight that
through Mayor Johnson's FY26 budget proposal and with the support of this council, this year we
filled 13 tax auditor vacancies. These had been vacant for several years. Tax enforcement
collections for this year have hit $131 million as of September, a $60 million increase over the
previous year. Earlier this year, the press inaccurately reported a total of $23 million
in employee debt outstanding. This reporting was incorrect. The total outstanding employee debt
of the City of Chicago and its sister agencies is more accurately reflected as $9.7 million in
unresolved debt. Of the remainder, $7.3 million is currently subject to voluntary payment plans,
and $6 million in debt is currently subject to wage garnishment. Of the unresolved debt,
a significant percentage is owed by employees that earn under the minimum threshold under state law
and are therefore ineligible for wage garnishment. Through our rigorous debt check cycles that occur
three times a year, we have brought down outstanding employee debt for the city and its
sister agencies considerably. Since 2003, DOF has resolved the debt of over 27,000
employees across the city and sister agencies.
We recognize that it can be difficult for people to pay past due debt.
Rising costs due to inflation and individual economic circumstances can create a financial
burden beyond one's means.
Our relief programs enable low-income families to pay for what they can afford, and this
enables the city to realize debt which may never have been collected otherwise. Our utility billing
relief program reduces water and sewer bills and related taxes by 50 percent for low-income families.
After a year of being current, all past debt and penalties from the prior to their enrollment
are waived. Since 2023, about 35,000 households have participated, netting the city approximately
$51 million in revenue and reducing costs for our most vulnerable residents who reinvest those
savings in the local economy. This is a win-win for city residents and for the city of Chicago
itself. Similar results have occurred for our vehicle violation clear path relief program
Since April of 2022, more than 100,000 individuals have participated, netting $26 million.
In 2025, we held a four-month vehicle ticket amnesty program where people paid their original
ticket amounts for over the past three years in exchange for waiving all penalties and past due
debt this program netted nearly 16 million and is the reason the 2027 fair share budget
includes a repeat of this program which is expected to bring in 6 million conservatively
we are continuing to utilize technology innovation to increase our efficiency
efficacy in collecting debt. We're developing the debt check portal.
We're developing the Debt Check Portal and the CHI Pay Wallet and other digital applications
to make it more convenient for people to identify their outstanding debt and make timely payments.
Additionally, we are looking for ways to maximize our efforts from an organizational perspective.
More than 50% of the positions in DOF are revenue generating.
This past year, with your support, we added 25 parking enforcement aides.
This led to an additional 140,000 citations and resulting in $4.6 million in additional net revenue.
Over this past year, the Smart Streets pilot has been expanded to 16 wards and 18 square miles.
We also expanded violation types from bus and bike lanes and bus stops to include parking meter zones
and streets cleaning. To date, the program has resulted in 152,000 warnings and violations
and $3.1 million in revenue. In addition, CTA partnered with us to expand its enforcement from
six buses to 52 buses and continues to be a valuable partner in improving traffic safety
for Chicagoans. Based on this success, Mayor Johnson and the City Council have tasked us with
expanding smart streets citywide this will be done in three phases over fiscal year 2027
and 2028 to accommodate required technological investments in 2027 as part of this expansion
the city will increase its enforcement vehicles from 8 to 26 and cta plans to add 48 buses for
total of 100. as a result the city anticipates additional revenue of approximately 13 million
dollars while all these enhancements in revenue for the city's finances it is really important
important to know that fines fees and forfeitures represent a very small part of the city's annual
budget budget approximately five percent the goal of dof's efforts is to promote public safety not
maximize revenue on the subject of safety one accident between a vehicle and a bicyclist
in a bike lane is one accident too many i'm proud to report that we have found the smart streets
program is improving driver behavior 84 of drivers who receive zero fine warnings did not receive a
ticket and 64 of drivers who received one ticket did not reoffend along those same lines we have
seen positive behavioral changes in school and park zones due to enhanced speed and red light
violation enforcement. Finally, I want to mention some administration functions carried out by DOF
that continue to serve all Chicagoans. First, our cash management and disbursements division has
been diligently working to identify and eliminate roadblocks at the departmental level which lead
to play delayed payments to vendors contractors and delegate agencies thanks to these efforts
dof is now processing payments within five to seven business days there are just a few
of the vital these are just a few of the vital areas which dof works every day to ensure that
the city is meeting its obligations this includes accurately accounting for its transactions and
operations. That's one of the most important legal obligations we have is timely and accurate
financial statements and collecting what is owed to the city of Chicago in the most efficient,
effective, and equitable manner. I greatly appreciate this opportunity to have provided
this opportunity to have provided you with DOF's accomplishments for 2026 and
our goals and aspirations for the coming year. I look forward to answering your
questions. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I want to add Alders Mitchell,
Quezada, Hatton, Silverstein, and Napolitano for the purposes of quorum.
uh we will begin uh chair dial passes on her first uh so just so that we're clear uh we gaveled in
with uh 19 members and those 19 that when we gaveled in we'll get that opportunity we will
go on seniority order for the most part if you have a need or uh have have something pressing
please let us know we try to get everybody in as best we can uh we do want to um you know get
everybody in. We're going to have 10 minutes in round one. This time, Chair Dowell is foregone
going first. My assumption is that everybody has questions unless you tell me that you do not.
If you don't have questions, just let me know. Some have already done, and we will pass by in
that respect. Okay. Chair Dowell, I'm just trying to make sure everybody's clear. That's all.
It's okay.
I'm just trying to establish so we don't have any confusion or anything else.
Okay.
Go ahead, Alderman LaSpada.
My one question for the benefit of the public is knowing that we intend this to be essentially a rolling meeting where today's quorum accounted for all quorums.
Can we assure that there will be public comment on each day since we have different departments each day?
Again, I open with, we will have public comment every morning when we gavel in at 9.30, we will have public comment every day based on the subjects that are up for that day.
uh based on the subjects that are up for that day thank you sir okay also alderman hall
is uh recognized as well okay with that being said uh alderman bill would be would be next
do you have any questions sir okay you're up followed by alderman riley thanks good morning
everyone um i have a lot of questions so hopefully you all can answer them quickly and precisely so
we don't have, you know, long-winded responses.
First, I would like to make a comment on these books.
You know, it's unfortunate.
Who made the call to only give us one set of books this year?
The budget books.
Sure.
Who made the call?
I believe we've been doing that for three or four years.
No, this is the first year in 28 years I've ever seen one set of books.
Last year we did the year before.
This is my third year.
Every year we've given out one book.
That's not true.
We always have two, one here and one for us to take back so we can study in the evenings or at home or in the office.
So hopefully moving forward, we continue to have two sets of books.
In you all's professional opinion, you all stand by this as being a balanced budget?
I do.
I believe the definition of a balanced budget includes both meeting revenues and expenditures in the current fiscal year.
as well as reducing deficits in those out years i have not yet seen what the reduction in those
deficits in those out years look like and so until i see that i'm not able to provide you
with a factual answer as of right now you reserve your right to say this is a balanced budget
Okay.
Mr. Belsky?
I, you know, a balanced budget-
You know, a balanced budget, revenues meet expenditures.
We worked really hard, the three of us, with our staffs for months,
and we feel we're giving you a budget where revenues meet expenditures.
All right. Interesting.
All right, let me ask you, what is your plan B if this head tax doesn't pass?
if if there's a need to work with council to solve um adjustments that council wants to see
in this budget we'll work with council okay so in other words we don't have a plan b in in the event
that uh the head tax doesn't pass we we've presented you with our plan all right so did
you see the letter that 29 alderman sent to the mayor regarding the head tax yes okay knowing that
you had 29 aldermen who said that they would not support a head tax why was it presented to us it
was the desire of the administration to introduce this tax so it was not the opinion of the
of your office to put that before us it was a decision by the mayor's office my office is not
a policy office we're a budget office okay so your office did not make that recommendation
We've worked with the mayor's office for four or five months now to develop revenue ideas to be put into this budget.
Okay. All right. Let's just quickly jump into the TRR, TIF review.
Currently, there are 47 positions sitting on the mayor's desk waiting for funding.
on the mayor's desk waiting for funding uh from the budget office do you know what those 20 47
projects are i don't have those in front of me every every project that has come to
office of budget management has been approved approved for funding correct were there any
denied for funding of course okay can you uh i asked for a list of all projects for the last
three years, three and a half years, all the projects that have been presented to budget
and which ones were sent to city council for funding by award, as well as which ones were
denied by your office by award.
The reason being, you know, I know that there's a bunch of projects that were forwarded to your office for funding, and they say that there's a total of 47 projects sitting on the mayor's desk that you have approved for funding but has not been presented to the city council.
You don't know what those 47 are?
No, I don't.
All right, so hopefully you can get those to me and break down, because I did receive something from the budget office, but it was very vague, and I think, you know, you said you have 50-something people in your department, that they can break all this stuff down and get it to us in a timely manner.
um tiff review i'm sorry the tiff suite were there any projects put on hold canceled
um pundit to 2028 uh to get to the tiff suite there weren't any projects that were
delayed or denied for the purpose of getting to our tiff surplus no were there any
our tiff surplus no were there any put on hold not for the purpose of getting to a particular
number in a tiff surplus okay so it is my understanding that based on the information
that was provided to us that there was only about 225 to 235 million in eligible tiff sweep earlier
this year so how did we get to a tip sweep of 500 over 500 million if earlier this year there was
only projected 225 to 235 how did we get to five over 500 without without canceling a project or
putting them on hold sure thank you for that question so uh when we are going through the
process of determining uh of really creating our forecast we have a tiff number uh tiff surplus
number that we typically use it's really at that point in time during the year it's it's early to
determine truly what we will have available to us uh above and beyond what is uh dedicated in
projects you know since that time until now there's been a number of projects that have been
approved you know revenue continue to come come in so we are conservative when we produce our forecast
around tiff surplus because we really don't know ultimately what the number will be so typically
every year we have a very similar number in our forecast to be conservative uh much preferred to
be conservative than overstate what the surplus will be and then we work for two months to
ultimately land on what truly should be surplused based off of the formulaic process that we have
okay so if a if a project was coming to your office for funding and your office denied it
do you notify the alderman if that project was denied
I'm not sure.
Typically, DPD is sort of responsible for the process of pushing projects through.
But DPD approved it, sent it to you for funding, and your department denied it.
So when does your office notify the alderman that their project was denied?
it yeah i'll hand that over to matthew schmitz who oversees our capital planning um thank you
matthew schmitz managing deputy budget director so there's um after the issues we had with tick
which was kind of like the predecessor of tur um basically dbd created a system for this linear
process by which projects go to dbd first uh for eligibility review then they come to our office
and our office does a very basic kind of review to assess whether there's enough funding available
in the TIF district to move the project forward to the mayor's office. If there's not, we will
in the system say denied and give the reason, not enough funding availability. DPD owns the system
in the process. My understanding is the system should then communicate back to the requester who
put in the request the denial and the reasoning. If that's not happening correctly, we can work
with dpd i can tell you it's not happening because i had a project that was denied by
the budget office and nobody communicated to me it was approved from planning sent over to the
budget office and it was denied and nobody contacted me whatsoever that the project was
denied and so you know i think that's a lapse in the department that you know my project was
denied and nobody contacted me so i'm just in limbo i'm notifying residents that dpd has
approved it to go to get funding you know and you all make a determination
You know, and you all make a determination or you all approve it, send it to the mayor's office and it sits on the mayor's office.
You know, first of all, it should not go to the mayor's office.
If you all approve it, it should not go to the mayor's office.
Why? Why is it going to the mayor's office for approval or to be submitted when the department said it's funded?
And it should just come before us. So help me understand that one.
uh my understanding is that the mayor's office is is looking at the project to make sure it
aligns with their policy goals align with their policy so if i don't align with the mayor's
policy my project don't go nowhere is that what you're telling me is that what is that what we're
saying i i guess i guess i i guess i know why i guess i know why my project got canceled
so i just have another question before we go to round two that's okay mr chairman are you
Are you signing up for round two or are you finishing round one?
All right, well, I'll just have one before I get to round two.
Hold on, Alderman.
Hold on one second.
Alderman Curtis.
Alderman Bill, I just have a point of information to that.
We passed the bond a year ago that asked us to do away with a lot of our TIF projects, not only our TIFs that's in our area.
the tiffs that went into that bond wouldn't it wouldn't it help out all projects all over the
city instead of just in a tiff area i'm not quite sure i follow so tiff funding and the bond funding
capital bond funding are used oftentimes in unison to fund projects uh you know when we're
we're talking about a project hold on hold on the answer to your question is yes um i think you're
misunderstanding what he's asking you're asking the fact that the additional release surplus as
it moves forward after the tiff expires is to go toward it's some wide stuff that's
that's outside of tiff that is correct that is correct that is your answer your question is yes
okay okay go ahead with your last question and then uh we're going to go to alderman riley
followed by aldermen uh actually my last question is actually a twofer first to the controller um
i need a total amount of all outstanding debt from all sister agencies as well as the city
um outstanding debt that is owed to us and i need a breakdown a total breakdown of all 33 000 summer
jobs that were presented. And out of those summer jobs, did they work the full summer or did they
just work partially over the summer, like two or three weeks in order to meet the numbers of this
33,000? So we've never been able to get a list of all 33,000 summer jobs. We don't know if we fill
any jobs. We don't know if, you know, it's just a number in the sky. If we don't know, if we don't
have the numbers we can blurt out any number we want and there's nothing to back it up well I'm
looking for backup for 33,000 jobs in order to go to 40,000 sure yeah our ward um you know that is
something that family support services should have by ward I'm not sure when you say ward are you
talking about the where the employee lives or where the the delegate is located both okay okay
Okay. That's something streets and sanitation, I'm sorry, family support services should have.
Well, they should, hopefully they're listening and they can provide us with that list before they get to us.
before they get to us okay very well i'll sign up around two would you like that you're gonna hang
out with us today all right okay um oh go ahead what do you have uh comptroller as i mentioned
before um what we do with uh sister city debt collection we have three debt cycles
So we notify those agencies three times a year.
We cross-reference people with debt and their payroll.
As of October, the Board of Ed had 4.6 million,
Chicago Housing Authority 23,000,
Park District 448, CTA 3.3 million,
City Colleges 262, so a total of 8.7 million.
We did, in our debt cycle, our last two debt cycles, we resolved $3.7 million amongst all those agencies.
And in the most recent debt cycle, we resolved $2.3 million.
So our debt cycles have been effective in reducing this debt down.
When people can, they have a 30-day period, they can either pay their debt in full, they
can either go on one of our relief programs, they can go on a payment plan, all of those
are facilitated through payroll deductions, or we can take them to court for wage garnishment.
As I mentioned in my statement, people making $50,000 or less are typically not eligible
for wage garnishment because they might have other demands on their paychecks such as child
support etc thank you okay next up we've got alderman riley followed by alderman o'shea
good morning thank you chairman good morning to the panel uh and to
chairman good morning to the panel uh and to the finance team in the box appreciate your service
to the city um my first question is to um you uh the cfo uh the mayor's press release says his
budget proposal closes an 882.4 million dollar gap your budget book states a revised gap of 652.5
million what accounts for the difference between the original number and the revised gap
It's a $229.9 million difference.
It wasn't cut or saved.
It was moved on to a bond.
Am I correct?
Yes.
Let me be revised.
The 652, I believe, is sort of a hypothetical amount of if we added the $36.1 million in
extra departmental spend that we found out through the budgeting process right so each department
might have a contract that increases because of inflation or something like that and then
subtracts out 266 million dollars in financing that will be put on bonds the actual for the
actual budget deficit is the 882.4 and as um acting budget director ernst has stated we then
add to that the new investments the extra departmental spend subtract out the savings
and efficiencies ma'am i'm sorry i'm gonna need much shorter answers to my questions sir okay
i think i've got your answer okay um is it standard practice for cities to adjust their
deficits based on what they plan to borrow it is not in my knowledge i mean what will
the rating agencies think of this maneuver are you concerned it's misleading to the public
it's misleading to the public i'm no longer an employee at a rating agency but i will tell you
in the past we would have ignored that number and just gone with the original budgeted amount
the 882 post amount yes so was this meant to confuse the public i'm not sure this we've never
seen this arrive in a budget book before i will defer to acting chair ernst so really the that
that second number is a way to be consistent year over year that number is representing our gap
in the same way that our gap was represented in previous years really this
year before FY 27 through a desire to be more transparent we showed the full
amount of these settlements and judgments there in the budget gap that
had never been done before well that's because you're planning on issuing bonds
and and borrowing to pay that correct correct as we as we are in 2020 answer
answer. That's fine. But while I have you, budget director, this budget closes $784 million
with $664.2 million in revenue and only $119.8 million in savings. And most of that's moving
spending off of the corporate fund. This budget is, quote, balanced with more than $5 in new
revenue for every one dollar saved why is the administration choosing taxing over managing
expenses in this particular budget and while i have you answering that question can you name
which departments are going to see spending go down year over year in this this budget sure so
budget sure so um you know i think in in my time with the budget office we have as stated in my
opening statement we have looked across all of our our departments to find savings and as a result
we have in in the in the first three years of of budgets introduced by this administration
we've seen nearly three quarters of a billion dollars we're talking about this year specifically
i'm yes i'm getting there so while you're on my time so i need to get there much faster
so those those reductions continue in this year we're adding another 120 million
and that 120 million really though you're not you're not saving 120 million how much of that
120 million is being shifted to enterprise funds
Shifting to other funds is around I think 65 68 million
so
Actual savings and and efficiencies is really a much lower number than 119 million, right?
Because we're we're still paying those expenses just out of a different account. Is that accurate?
The the gap number is a corporate gap number
so we report on savings on the corporate gap very good um chief financial officer i wanted to go
back to you since we did talk about your history at fitch ratings back in february fitch downgraded
chicago to um triple b plus three notches above junk with a negative outlook citing operating
deficits every year since 2023 heavy reliance on non-structural solutions persistent out-year gaps
and ongoing disagreements between the administration and the city council.
Sound familiar?
Yes, sir.
This budget repeats every one of those problems listed by Fitch Ratings, where you...
listed by Fitch Ratings, where you once worked. We have at least $155.6 million in one-time money,
$480 million in new borrowing for settlements, an $882 million structural gap,
and a jobs tax that a majority of this city council rejected once already.
If you were still at Fitch reviewing this budget, would you give the city a stable or positive
outlook i would say that i am not still at fitch but what the best what to look for in that rating
report is the negative sensitivities and anyone can access those rating reports those negative
sensitivities from a rating agency perspective tell you what is the rating agency is likely to
move down upon or up upon but in this case what you cite is would be downward movement okay and
And this is a jump ball, I think, maybe between the acting budget director or you, CFO.
Under the mayor's increase, will residents pay more lease tax on a wet vac rented to clean out a flooded basement or a bouncy house for a block party or tents or chairs for a celebration?
the tax on a $200 basement cleanup rental would rise from 30 to 40 bucks and on a thousand dollars
in tents and chairs from 150 to 200 are there any of these consumer related expenses that are
exempt i mean we all know that that these lease taxes aren't a corporate tax they're passed along
directly to the consumer so i'm just trying to understand what our consumers here in chicago
should be bracing for yeah there is an exemption uh or at least the rate will not be increased
when leasing a vehicle okay uh so so vehicles
Okay. So vehicles are exempt?
I mean, they'll remain at the 15%.
At the 15%. Okay. I guess that's kind of good news.
Are there any other expenses, any other leases that consumers must pay or rentals that are exempt?
Not that consumers pay, no.
No. So nothing else is exempt.
We also now have the mayor's third job tax proposed in 12 months.
The council passed this year's budget without it.
And back on September 28th, 29 aldermen, a majority of this body, wrote that they will not support one.
Why is $114 million of your budget built on a tax a majority has already rejected and has indicated very clearly it plans to reject again?
I guess that's for you, budget director.
Sure. It's included because that is what we've heard from the public through every interaction
we've had with them. They've said resoundingly they want to see that businesses pay their fair
share. They don't feel that they are. They feel like they are being taxed more than businesses
and they've asked that we do so.
And that's based on the feedback that you received
in these budget echo chambers you hosted throughout the city?
It is through those sessions we had.
Or was it through certain interest groups
that advocate for imposing new regulations and taxes
that kill business and investment in cities like Chicago?
I'll move on. This budget proposal eliminates 132 sworn police officer positions. That follows
police officer positions. That follows the mayor's first budget in 2024, which eliminated
833 police officer positions while shifting other officers into specialized roles. A net cut of 54
officer positions in 2025, with only six added back in 2026. So all in, this administration has
eliminated about 1,000 sworn police officers from our city budget. Is this budget defunding
the police? Hold on. Let him answer his question. I'll come back to you.
So the 132 positions you referred to aren't being eliminated. They're being converted to
civilian positions, which will allow officers to come from behind a desk and be back on the street.
So those are jobs currently held by police officers, or are those vacant positions that are currently not filled?
Because there was some confusion among my colleagues and I when we were reviewing the budget proposal.
We read it, and perhaps we read your document incorrectly, that most of those positions are actually vacant and still need to be filled.
The 132 civilian positions, is that what you're talking about?
Right, yes, yeah.
They don't exist right now. They'll be added to next year's budget. So yes, they are vacant.
So are they, again, I guess where we're confused is that you're also eliminating vacant officer positions, so how are we putting more cops back on the street if we're not funding vacant officer positions and we're civilianizing these 132?
Sure, because there are officers right now behind a desk, will add the appropriate civilian position to do that work.
That officer then will move back onto the street, and that is balanced through the elimination of a PO vacancy.
Thus, there'll be a net gain on the street.
So you can assure this body that there'll be 132 officers currently sitting in a desk
returned to the street, and you can commit to that in writing?
Absolutely not.
I'm providing...
Hold on now.
Thank you for being honest.
I'm providing a budget for CPD to carry out their civilianization.
Okay.
I guess we're getting stuck on semantics.
Thank you, Chairman.
Chairman, I'll go in round two.
Thank you.
Okay, round two.
And that question, I think you probably want to ask the superintendent when he arises.
Alderman Vasquez, you had a point.
Yeah, but I think it was sufficiently answered.
I think there's a difference between moving position for one or the other.
What those individuals decide to do as officers when they're asked to be on the street is
their own choice to make, step up from what the plan was.
Thank you.
All right, no problem.
Mr. Chairman.
All right.
I wanted to just...
Comptroller.
I just want to address the settlements and judgment issue
and also kind of having a rating agency perspective, Alderman.
I appreciate where you're coming from.
One thing I would say is in the rating agencies,
if you have a challenge,
they want to know what's your response going to be
before they take action
because management is one of the credit factors.
these settlements and judgments at the time of the budget forecast they were put in there
the transparency aspect is what what's the total amount right it's it's a big number
and it's extraordinary in that these are things that happened years ago that are now coming home
to roost so one thing i'd say to the rating agencies is through the settlements that you're
doing and the fact that the law department seeking to do that is saving
some money that's a positive the idea of financing these things is necessities
the mother of invention.
There are all over this country,
each state has enabling legislation
that allows for funding judgments
because they're unexpected.
I think when COVID happened or the great recession,
the federal government,
the Fed actually started lending money to cities
to cover the gap.
And in the same way,
if you have an unexpected liability like this that you can't determine by financing it what
you're doing is kind of setting it aside from the operating budget and you're having a predictable
repayment stream and it's very important it's very important that when you have a budget you
want to have predictability and revenues and expenditures so this puts this in a place where
we know what we're going to have to pay back over time we don't want this liability nobody does
but the best way to deal with it without crowding out a lot of services at that larger number and
and affecting the quality of life in Chicago the only option you have is to finance it and and you
finance it as short as possible and you hope that going into the future these things dissipate so
you don't have to face that sort of what i would call a floating liability every year
thank you yes quickly please i manage our ratings i would just like to say that
a negative rating sensitivity from crawl is further borrowing for the city for other than
capital purposes i understand that but you know in my 20 years here on this council um police
settlements are actually kind of a regular annual cost of doing business sadly that's a really sad
cost of doing business sadly that's a really sad commentary right um and so moving you know 480
million bucks towards bonds where we're going to be paying a pretty substantial interest rate
in just five to seven years there is a cost that comes with that for folks down the road um thank
you for answering my questions thank you for adding that context uh comptroller thank you
chairman i'll be in round two okay uh and i guess to to the point i think we got to recognize that
Our settlements and judgments over the last couple of years have been somewhat of an anomaly with these large global settlements with probably one to two more to go.
But probably after that, hopefully we will have a more predictable and understandable amount on an annual basis.
But I know we've got to get through this particular point based on Guevara and potentially others.
So Alderman O'Shea followed by Alderman Quinn.
No, him. I said it.
we'll pick one either one go thank you chairman i'd like to just follow up a little bit about what
my colleague alderman riley just brought up on the topic of public safety in the chicago police
department um those 132 positions we're removing 132 sworn police officers and adding 132 civilian
positions those are positions that won't be filled next month or in two months or in six months
if luck if we're lucky they might be filled over the course of the year but what that means is
that's a lot 132 less police officers in police district all across the city and for any of you
that aren't paying attention every single district is significantly down today from where it was a
year ago today including my police district but another issue we have is
the fact that people are declining leaders
the fact that people are declining leadership positions in the police department,
what I'm talking about, budget director,
we know that lieutenants and captains are turning down promotions to commander.
Again, the most important position in your police district is your commander
because members of exempt ranks lose certain benefits that other sworn members keep.
are we familiar with that sir yes and that's been a problem for how long i can't speak to how long
it's been a problem but it's certainly in my time in obm it has been brought up by the police
department um the last two years so since 2023 do we know how many lieutenants and captains have
declined a promotion to commander? I don't. That may be a question for CPD or possibly DHR. I'm
not sure who would have that information. And do we know how many members of exempt ranks
have asked to return to their old rank over the last few years? Same answer. Yeah, it's a lot,
folks does this budget fund pay separation between supervisors and command staff so that is something
we're actively working on right now um we've actually had that issue with both cfd and cpd
this budget just because cfd has been a little further along in the process this budget does
address that issues for CFD but we're actively working with the police
department labor relations everyone to to come to a solve for that we've had
we've had three years to come to that solved are we getting any closer because we've got a real
problem ladies and gentlemen in leadership in the police department men and women who aren't
interested in serving as commanders because the captain under them makes significantly more
absolutely without without the added responsibility stress etc it's absolutely needs to be addressed
I'll hand it over to Kevin Murphy, who is OBM's representative through this work.
Good morning.
Good morning, Managing Deputy Budget Director Kevin Murphy.
Thank you, Alderman, for that question.
Absolutely, we're aware of it.
Mostly, these issues were compounded when the sworn collective bargaining agreements were ratified by council a couple years ago.
So we've actively worked with CFD and DHR to create a new salary schedule for the exempt
ranks, which is similar to how we address salary compression issues on the non-sworn
side.
It's a problem we've been tackling since 2021 is when I began working on a lot of this.
It did focus primarily on the non-sworn at Hearst, but we are working on the sworn side.
We anticipate in this budget implementing a salary schedule with CPD-exempt ranks.
We're trying to target July 1st of next year.
Hold the time for a second.
How much is that in this budget now, or is it something that's funded currently for removing the salary compression between the command staff and the officers?
Yeah, we captured anticipated funds that we would expend to implement that in the FY27 budget.
It's really captured in finance general for CPD.
For CFD, it is actually in the salary lines for the exempt rank staff.
the salary lines for the exempt rank staff. You can also see a copy of what we call the FX
schedule for the exempt ranks for the fire department in the back of the recommendation
book. On a percentage basis, and I will use the example that Audemarsche brought up of the captain
versus the commander. What is the anticipated difference based on your new schedule you plan
to make effective July 1? Yeah, I don't know that offhand. We can provide that through the
chair for you. Okay. Thank you. Chair Del? Point of information, just to follow up on what you said,
why is there a difference in placing some of that increase in finance general versus showing it in
the departmental line budget? Thank you, Alderman, for your question. So with CFD, that's actually
in their department budget because we're implementing the schedule. So we put it on the
actual salary lines of the individual positions because cpd doesn't yet have a schedule developed
we're going to work with cpd and dhr to create that schedule um it would reflect in the department
budget in subsequent years once we implement but we just reserved amounts until we find get final
numbers um to implement that schedule and move individuals thank you automotive thank you um
to the chief financial officer has the budget office compared total compensation
for command staff union supervisors and civilian executives that is not something that i am aware
of or know whether they have or have not mr budget director do you have anything you'd like to add on
that have we compared yes sure that's that's part of the process that obm cpd is going through
to determine what this schedule should look like and are we aware
And are we aware that exempt members have lost their year of medical leave
and pay for health insurance than any other sworn members?
We are.
I mean, that will be part of, that is part of the discussion.
And so to anybody upstairs listening,
will the self-described most pro-worker mayor recognize this,
or is this something that needs to become a union fight and at what cost to taxpayers
yeah again as kevin stated the goal is to resolve this by mid-year
it's been a problem for several years we hope to address it by mid-year
meanwhile and and to everybody here don't take my word for it call up your commander and ask
Is this a problem in your district?
Is this a problem?
Is anybody else hearing this?
We want the best leaders in our department.
This issue needs to be addressed.
We can't wait till July.
We're going to have more people walk out the door.
We're going to have more talented men and women refuse leadership positions,
which is only going to add to our problems with many of these settlements
because we have a lack of supervisor leadership.
Alderman Rodriguez-Sanchez?
um did we uh freeze 500 positions in cpd last budget with the budget that was passed
for the fy26 budget yes there are 500 uh that was passed by the majority thank you
The Chicago Tribune reports that a police hire
The Chicago Tribune reports that a police hiring freeze and the elimination of vacant positions save the city $27 million.
Most of the $34 million in personnel savings.
It was never mentioned in the budget address last week.
Can we explain what that is?
Sure, I can walk through the entire sort of staffing for CPD.
So as just stated, 500 positions, PO positions were frozen for this year.
And so in continuing in that, we are now for FY27, sort of breaking that up.
We are taking 132 positions and converting those to civilian positions.
and then taking the remaining 368 positions and continuing to freeze those now while we do that
we are uh we i've been working with with the police department to ensure i've given them
commitment we've landed on a schedule around their ability to hire po's next year and been
able to meet the exact request of when we say next year we talk in 2027 correct what's our plan
of how many do we think we can get through the police academy in the calendar year 2027
uh the superintendent hopes to get 600 through next year how many are in the academy as we speak
today i i i'm not i'm not aware how many they have i'm not aware of any but how i think they
do have a class uh they definitely had a class in september i believe they had a have a class
in october i don't know if it's begun yet okay well in in closing uh chairman we're significantly
We're significantly down officers today from where we were a year ago.
And if anybody didn't hear that, the numbers coming through next year are going to be even less,
in addition to the issues we have with supervisory positions.
Thank you.
Thank you, Alderman O'Shea, Alderman Quinn, followed by Vice Chair Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
just picking up where alderman o'shea left off how many how many blue shirt officers do we have
right now i don't have that number and you you said that um we're anticipating hiring 600 new
next year correct that's that's correct do we know about how many are going to retire next year
or how many could retire yeah actually that's we we look at uh retirements um other attrition and
promotions as well when we look at this when we consider how many we need to to be hiring in a
year and so working with with cpd they've determined that they need and have the ability
to hire 600 okay they do have a cap on on what they can bring on during year and and they've
determined that 600 who sets the cap i think it's just a capacity and and also uh you need
candidates understood so it's a reality right okay um back to the question um how many how
many officers can retire it seems to me that back 25 30 years ago we had 30 000 potential candidates
we don't have that anymore so um coming full circle a lot of those folks are eligible to
retire which i anticipate that we're going to have an even bigger gap yeah the the 600 that
are anticipated to be hired next year should just slightly
should just slightly, is slightly greater than the anticipated number of police officers
that will leave through the multitude of exits or promotion.
Got it. Thank you.
This past May, Dr. King from CPS was testified in our education committee
and made a request of $75 million in TIF surplus.
um we had made a tiff surplus declaration in the mayor's budget of 520
um which means that cps will get 260 million new is that intentional it seems like we're
we're bailing out cps here uh no it's not intentional there wasn't like a target to hit
there wasn't there were no uh projects that were delayed or or defunded in order to get that number
that's a formulaic number that that we've landed on and what processes are are starting now to
sort of detangle the city of chicago's finances with cps's finances we're going to be fully
elected november 3rd with cps yep uh that is something that we would be welcoming i think
the biggest thing that that we need um you know one of a large burden on this on this uh budget
we have here is the pension payments that we are required to pay on behalf of cps i think
if you look at disentanglement that is the number one issue that needs to be
addressed it needs to be addressed at the state issue at the state level okay
right and so any plans in Springfield for that action or just a hope and a
My understanding is that those conversations are ongoing
going um just shifting gears here um many calls into the 13th ward about the mayor's proposal
for a new packaging waste tax of 15 cents for each single use uh how how is that going to get
implemented so that's okay that's implemented um just through the department of finance
is it at the sale what part of the transaction it's it's on the the company that makes the
delivery it's on the company so yes they will pay the city of chicago they will pay the city
of chicago okay and so i have that clear it's it's any package that say amazon delivers
So long as it's not in its, because I have seen this from Amazon, sometimes they deliver
a package in its original packaging, no additional packaging surrounding it.
So as long as it's in additional packaging, because this is a waste tax, it will be applied.
and it will be applied by amazon correct and in the city of chicago will collect from amazon
i have a point of information i'll try down yes thank you alderman quinn does this also apply to
third party delivers like you order something from shop and they use somebody to deliver
or something to your home yeah i mean vice chair thank you just point of clarification for this
vice chair. Thank you. Just point of clarification for this. There are services other than UPS and
FedEx and Amazon. There's delivery services like GoFo that we get a lot of packages from.
Shopify is something that is very common. So I think the question is, where's the city going to
build its list of delivery people from? Sure. I can say that it would apply to all of those.
I will hand it over to the Department of Finance to talk about their process around how they interact with vendors.
And have they prepared that list? Is that a list that they have already?
As you know, we collect numerous taxes from different businesses, and we have returns and a tax collection regime in place.
For this particular new proposal, I would like to turn it to Brian Carlson, our head of tax enforcement, to discuss what sort of what we need for implementation.
Thank you, Brian Carlson, Deputy Director of Tax Administration and Enforcement.
Your question, Elder Wimondow, regarding do we have a list currently?
What we would do is the tax gets implemented.
We would communicate that through all of our channels on the web and companies would register as they've done when we created other taxes in previous years.
Budgets, we are aware of retailers that are making deliveries and facilitator companies.
So we would go through the ones that are known and make sure that they are registered once the tax does come online.
Thank you.
Quinn. Thank you. Going back to the mayor's budget remarks, he talks about the fair share
budget is 76% structural, meaning we are reducing our reliance on one-time fixes,
continually shrinking our deficit. Madam CFO, do you think this is 76% structural?
the 76 number comes from removing settlements and judgments from the denominator
as well as the 36.1 million in new investments um to the departments um i i stick with the 882
forecasted budget um add the new investments add the departmental extra costs and and that is
that is my denominator and I believe it's also acting budget director Ernst's denominator as
well and so we're looking at something closer to 56 percent balanced. 56 percent balanced not 76
okay I just wanted to because I thought when I read that I thought that seems a little bit high
i don't i don't know if we've ever been 76 structurally balanced um not surprised that
the mayor may be a little disingenuous here um that seems to be his normal course um okay um
just so i have some some clarity here on on some other notes from the mayor's budget um he's
proposing 40 like 41 million in cvi 30 390 street out rework street outreach workers and 800
peacekeepers is that do i have that right yeah overall correct okay and um can we talk a little
Can we talk a little bit about the summer jobs?
He's moving his summer job number up to 40,000 summer jobs,
and the total cost is...
We're adding an additional $24 million to go from that...
$24 million, right.
To go from the 33 to 40.
All total, we're talking about, I think you said it, budget director,
131 million new in spending on top of the 882 million dollar gap okay um i don't know if i
have any further questions that's a that's a lot of money to solve for um thank you for now
thank you uh alderman quinn we're gonna go to vice chair lee followed by uh alderman lopez
unless lunch is ready before the end.
So, Vice Chair Lee.
Thank you, Ms. Chairman.
Thank you all for being here
and for all the work that you've already done
pulling the budget together.
I want to start with the PPLT.
You know, last year,
we increased the PPLT from 11% to 15%
with an assurance to the business community
to anybody that was being taxed by the pplt that we would not raise that for at least two years till
after january 1st of 2028 uh increases this is a this is an just an insane amount of uh increase
to the pplt um well what happened to the freeze here guys anybody for nobody in particular
we've we've stricken that from the from the revenue management ordinance understood but
can you give some more background as to what what prompted that and considerations that were given to
prompted that and considerations that were given to what the impact would be to everyday people
well to to uh the sort of thought process was we looked at this revenue looked at how it has
performed throughout this year continues to overperform continues to grow um it is you know
when you look at a how an economy evolves this is where the economy is moving towards
you know away from areas that we've typically tax we need to evolve with that or else we don't end
up getting the structural fixes that we need i think in looking at comparing pplt with some
other taxes you have to look at the the aggregate tax that that are that exist it's not just the
city tax it's county state this is one where in fact we are the only taxing body so when you
compare the 20 percent to something like parking taxes which is at 35 percent you know cannabis
at 26. The, you know, gaming will now be at 20. But I think the most stark example is something
that we all do on a regular basis, which is buy gas. Gas tax, in aggregate, is 26.7%.
All of those things are contributing to the affordability crisis that we are all feeling
right now um hey can you talk a little bit about any modeling you all did about the elasticity of
this tax because this is you know as many of my colleagues have already mentioned
As many of my colleagues have already mentioned, we, we signed a letter regarding the, the head tax. This is a, this is a further tax on business and what's to stop somebody from, you know, saying, you know, this tax is, is getting to be so cost prohibitive that I'm just going to move over the border.
because i think that there is a point where we continue to to implement taxes like these
and at these rates and the the two-year moratorium that we put in in the management ordinance
was to provide some level predictability i don't think it says a whole lot about the stability of
the city if we have just in a year's time reneged on that because that's what this is doing can you
talk about the elasticity yeah certainly thank you for the question so in our revenue projection
we have an elasticity assumption used for the modeling at negative 0.32 which is aligned with
enterprise IT infrastructure products that are that are included in the overwhelming majority
of ppl revenue i think it's about 80 percent of pptl revenue is in that sector so for the 33
percent increase that we're proposing we anticipate a corresponding drop in demand by roughly 10.5
percent thanks for that um i don't think anybody understood that what is what did your research
or uh planning modeling around this say about who bears the cost of the pplt ultimately
you know the pplt is covers a wide variety of leasing activities again 80 percent is in the
it infrastructure area so
um so that's those companies will bear the majority of this um you know
would a streaming service be included in that 80 percent yes pretty sure all of us that pay
for streaming services are going to see that line on our bills i'm sorry um
johnny do you want to i may have just misspoke i'm not sure sure uh jan mafeo deputy director
uh for the streaming services would apply to the amusement tax which is not being adjusted
um thanks for the clarification on that uh on uh on a rental of a piece of equipment as uh
alderman riley was talking about earlier tuxedo uh home depot for a dehumidifier for a flooded
basement um do those things appear on a on a receipt then for what's being charged at the
point of sale i know that the the companies are remitting the taxes because they're collecting
them but my point here obviously is who's actually paying that i mean i i think ultimately that's the
that is to be determined by the business themselves um but i would anticipate that it would show up in
bill just like sales tax would although there is no sales tax on on these particular activities
right because what we want to charge them for is a 20 tax which is almost double what sales tax is
today um what do you think that does how does a 20 tax on cloud infrastructure square with the
city trying to attract data centers data centers is one of the one of the most lucrative um real
estate investments, they generate a lot of property taxes. Obviously, they're going to
produce cloud computing. And this additional tax, did you take a look at that at all? What the impact
this additional tax did you take a look at that at all what the impact would be there
well i think that you know we've we've looked across you know across everything i mean data
centers are a complex uh area right now i think there's a lot of things to consider when you talk
about attracting data centers you know so we do need to balance uh i think it's not as just as
simple as is this going to deter from from bringing data centers you know we as we are
we know we're we need to look responsibly around whether whether we want to and at what level we
want to bring in i'm glad you mentioned responsible um and i appreciate the answer i i know data
centers are a very complex thing which the city and many other municipalities uh around the
country are taking a hard look at i i think that um we operate in uh in a delicate ecosystem
right so every single one of these moves that are proposed in this budget um have an effect
on something else uh and i have a big concern about what this is going to do to our ability
to grow i believe that we need to grow our way out of this problem not spend our way out of it
um and what we're doing is putting up more obstacles for growth in this city i'm going
to move on i've got another minute i'll need a round two chair um just to shift over i want to
shift back to youth jobs for a second i just want to clarify we're we're increasing this budget
49 percent because it's 24 million last year it was 49 million and we're adding another 24 million
so it's approximately 49 percent already than the calculation um 24 million 49 percent increase
to only add 7 000 more jobs can someone please explain the math
7,000 more jobs. Can someone please explain the math to me? Sure. Sure. Absolutely. I can't go
into the full details. DFSS can probably give you the solid numbers, but the 40,000 or 33,
whichever, that includes all jobs across the city, not only funded from our budget, funded from,
you know park district and and other entities the in the entire program the entire uh number of
opportunities that are made available so we only we're only with the city's budget we're only
funding a portion of that larger amount so just to be clear are we funding 40 000 jobs out of the
city budget are you saying that part of that 40 part of those jobs are being funded through other
places that's correct so we're actually paying more then if what you're saying is that i'll just
give you an example if we're can i just clarify we we funded 33 000 jobs last year we're saying
we're going to increase by 7 000 you're saying those 7 000 jobs are not all located within the
city or not they're in the city they're within within city departments correct so the 24 million
is funding the 7 000 jobs but you're saying those jobs are also going they're not just going to
exclusively be within city departments they're going to be at the park district and in other
places the the 7 000 are in addition in the city budget what i'm saying is when you look at
the entire program and say there will be 40,000 next year a good portion of those are funded
with with city funding some of those positions are funded by say park district funding as well
they they they are a partner in this program okay so can you provide through the chair you
provide through the chair you don't have to give this to me right now i would like and i think the
council would like a total picture of what the uh youth summer jobs program is costing across
agencies absolutely because that's a that's a very big increase for a small number of jobs
so the other and i'll ask dfss when they come up but i'll come back for round two thank you chair
alderman lopez followed by alderman moore thank you chairman and good afternoon members of the
committee um first and foremost allow me to say that i'm i'm glad to hear the quote that we'll
work with city council from you mr ernst um will this budget be provided to the city council
in an editable adjustable format and not just a 400 page pdf we can work with you around i think
definitely last year was a lesson for all of us i guess it was it was difficult for council to make
adjustments ultimately it ended up a lot of back and forth to try to get uh amendments that that
could actually be is that yeah we will work with you on that and can you provide that editable
version also to kofa as well oh absolutely okay um before i get into some of the budget questions
that were presented um i do have a question about arpa funding 2027 is the year that we're supposed
to basically um look back and see if we've used it accordingly audit am i correct in that assessment
yes the funding ends at the end of this year this year and then we have a review by treasury
it's sort of in a way sort of the at november uh the fed sort of made an adjustment and and said
no you need to do your spending by the end of november not december so so is there any
contingency built into this budget should we find out that any of our arpa funding was used in
any of our arpa funding was used incorrectly that we may or may that we may have to repay
yes we do have a sort of a contingency plan um and what is it we have a fund 0075
that acts as a contingency plan i'll hand it over to matthew schmitz for further information
uh matthew schmitz managing deputy budget director uh that's correct so in our grants management fund
We build in a contingency, not just for ARPA, but for all our grants management programs.
And so we're actually still in the process of closing out several large grants that happened during COVID, including some FEMA programs, specifically the public assistance.
How much is in this fund?
The current balance, I believe, is $10 million.
Okay, so we have $10 million allocated just in case we have to give something back as of right now.
Okay.
Okay. With regards to the settlements and the borrowing, has the ordinance for this expedited
borrowing schedule been presented or is that in the management or is that going to be provided
at a later date? So we will present that at a later date. The question that I have is that
our actress said that we have roughly $1 billion in open lines of credit. Is that correct?
i'm sorry i said that one more time sir alderman we have one billion dollars
in open lines of credit is that correct um so on the corporate side of things we have
six hundred thousand dollars um of that available capacity is just under sorry six hundred thousand
600 million okay excuse me um available to us is just under 87 million
to us is just under 87 million in open lines of credit um if you're talking about the airports
they have a different just the corporate so okay just corporate is 600 million but only 87
million is available to us that has not been used so we've accessed 520 million dollars of various
lines of credit through the corporate fund already? Roughly? 513. Yep. 120 million, which
are settlements and judgments from last year that we didn't have the bonding authority
to actually put out in general obligation bonds. So some of those are sitting on our line of credit
as well. And is there any intention of trying to activate any of those outstanding lines of credit
before we take on new? Well, we do plan to take that 120 off of that line of credit
um in this authority that we are asking counsel for do you intend to use any of that 80 plus
million that we have outstanding for anything in this budget not in this budget okay um with
regards to personnel services across all departments um it was suggested to this
administration and to the mayor that we should possibly forego some of the raises for our
non-covered employees that we just recently saw were given high raises in the last budget.
Was there any reason why that was not an entertained thought in this budget provided today?
Can you clarify when you say given high raises?
Right. So we're giving raises to many of our employees. Our personnel services
across all departments are increasing is there a reason well there there there is
an ordinance uh salary schedule for
salary schedule for all of these employees. They get step increases as they, as their seniority
increases. This is, it's actually in the back of the, I know where it is. Thank you. And then
there's also, uh, the annual COLA increases that occur mid-year. So, so that, that's, that's the
increases you're seeing. We haven't, we have not approved a unscheduled pay increase for anyone
on a schedule in the time i've been with as we're seeing as we're seeing these cost of living
increases and we're seeing all of those um they are many of these personnel sir many of these
personnel costs are going above and beyond cpi cpi for 2026 was 2.2929 and as we look at
various departments we're seeing nine percent increase in personnel costs for mayor's office
roughly two or three times the cost of the consumer price index is what we're giving raises
for. Last year's budget, we saw raises that were five digits. Law department alone had people with
$40,000 raises. Are we in this time when we are asking to do more with less, should we be giving
raises that are beyond what the cost of what the consumer price index is? Again, we're not giving
raises that we're playing a game of semantics here sir and it's really getting annoying
let me just say this let me let me just say this because i've sat here and listened to you argue
and and and and play these games over and over again just be honest with us for five minutes
because i only get you for 10 so let me be let me just you are giving raises it's in the salary
adjustment which you condescendingly reminded me where it is i know where it is i've been here
long enough. We are giving our employees raises. We are increasing salary.
our employees raises. We are increasing salaries, whether it's by the cost of living or by the
salary adjustment. The question was, should we have foregone some of that? Because we can adjust
those salary schedules, correct? Yes. Sure. So then we don't have to do that. If we are in a
tight budget season, if we are adding a billion dollars over last year's budget, we could have
said, maybe we don't need to do a 9% pay increase in the mayor's office or a 7% in human resources
or so on and so forth. We could have said, let's hold off, especially if you just got a raise last
year. We could have said that, but we're not. So the question that I have is, if we are, as we all
are in this room, bound by CPI, why didn't we have that conversation to try and save some money?
well we also would like to retain talent if you don't keep competitive salaries talent leaves
we've been around 20 years i've seen periods of time where that's happened uh we've
just not so since we're talking about retaining talent are we also going to put an end to the
work from home the remote work that we started during covid that we still allow thousands of
employees to participate in there's not plans to that again it comes down to competitive
so that is a perk but does it employees get so we are paying people for five days a week work
we're giving them raises beyond consumer price index and we're allowing them to stay home at
least one day a week where they are unavailable to do any work for the citizens of chicago
so that's what we're saying is is the competitive edge that we're giving people
they certainly work when they're no they don't they don't what they do is they tell us i'll get
back to you when i get back in the office that's what they do and we've had this conversation
numerous times ever since we all started coming back to work how do we put an end to this
all started coming back to work. How do we put an end to this? And every time I keep hearing from
your department, whether you were at the helm or not, is that this is for personnel and recruitment
and it's actually a disservice to the taxpayers of the city of Chicago, to be perfectly honest
with you. Earlier this year, we were told that our settlement fund was going to be increased across
the board out of the corporate fund for $400 million. I feel as though this department lied
to us because now we're borrowing. Just as though, just like we are also were told when we
did the parking meter lease that there was going to be a new fund created to accept the $75 million
that would go directly to a pension payment. I have not found in this book where that $75 million
community benefits fund is that we were supposed to receive the money from. And I don't see how
it's being used as part of a budgetary gimmick by this administration right now can you explain
that to me please sure it's it we we've been transparent with that is in our gap closing
as as being included to help pay for pension where in this budget did you take receipt
because the ordinance says in section 2.4 concession payments
that they shall be used to fund pension payments
and that we are also approving the existence of the community benefits fund.
Funds, is that plural?
That's in reference to the $75 million.
They're not referring to a fund.
They're referring to the funds, which are $75 million coming to the city.
And when were we in receipt of that?
The wire on that closed approximately last week.
Alderman, I have been in conversation with the accountants
about setting up a separate fund so that we can separately track that interest
for that payment.
Because there is a fund that's supposed to be created to be in receipt of this, yes?
We contemplated that during the parking meter hearing.
There has not yet been one, to my knowledge.
but in order to keep the interest from that money separate from the interest in the corporate fund
a separate fund would need to be created uh last time i heard my last update is that that money
is still with the treasurer's office and had not been um ported over to us and so we were working
on so the money's come to the treasurer's office and then they come to us and i have been i have
been very clear that i do believe we need to have a separate fund based upon that third amended
agreement and the wording there and then it is up to alders to determine as you can see at 2.3
how to allocate that 75 million in one-time payment so if the or and forgive me chairman
i just want to end with this wrap this one up um so the ordinance was very clear that it's our
decision where that money goes correct alderman yeah it says that you will notify us and like
all things that we get the budget committee has to direct it from there once we get that correct
whether it was like if we were to get a grant last part the budget committee has to make
the ordinance which fund where it goes from there yes yes so well not the budget committee no
hold on let's let's be clear the ordinance gave clear direction that that money was to go toward
pension obligations i don't think anything here
obligations. I don't think anything here, I know there may be some disagreement, was it above and
beyond the original about that or how that's going to play out. So again, I think the money
has been set up to go toward pension obligations. Now there's going to be some disagreement over
what and all that stuff, but I think that's where we are. That's what the budget proposes
And that's kind of where it is. Do you want to add anything to that, Chair?
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The ordinance is clear that the city council should have future action, can take future action on how that $75 million and the additional payments, the transfer fee, the profit share, how that gets allocated to the city of Chicago.
So, correct.
Okay.
I'll take a run too, Jeremy.
Thank you.
I'm sure you will.
Okay, with that, we are going to recognize Alderman Gardner,
who's a non-member that has joined us.
We're going to take a break for lunch.
We will return back at 1.45, leading with Alderman Moore.
So, we'll stand in recess till 1.45.
Everybody on the bar, please.
uh south of canada like northwest how are we doing
Good afternoon. The committee will come back to order.
We will begin this afternoon's session with Alderman Moore,
who will be followed by Alderman Sposato.
Are you ready, Cameron?
Oh no, go ahead, you're on
Alright, thanks
First of all, I just want to thank the budget team
for the work that they are doing
and Comptroller Belsky, thank you for always picking up your phone
and helping out in my ward especially
and to Chip Hastings, anytime I call upon you
you're there to ask and give guidance
and just your whole team here as a whole
I appreciate now let me get to hopefully some quick questions and try to leave out as much
detail but get to the answer as possible for the sake of time the local government distributive
fund when was that taken away from the city of Chicago in terms of the percentage when was it
reduced and what dollar amount was that reduced by you're going before my time I'm not sure what
year what year it was taken away i'm not sure if you're talking about the reduction in the
percentage yes administrative costs they're starting to levy so the state started levying
an administrative costs to that fund and and i i'm not going to be right with the numbers but i
want to say it was the first part of pritzker's administration um after the state had not had a
budget for a number of years and so um they had that huge billion dollar backlog of bills
i believe unless you you or your staff have that number we would have to provide
you can provide it to the chair i've got january of 2011 uh it was at 10 percent right and it's
now at around six or something like that somewhere around there and i just threw the chair but if
and i just threw the chair but if you got it on record i really wanted on record to know about
if if we were still at that 10 how much money are we talking we should know that but nobody has that
answer okay then through the checkers i don't want to waste time yeah if somebody and if somebody can
put up before we leave here that'd be helpful that's important um for us to know my my other
question has to do with the 1% grocery tax. And let me start by a statement before I get to the
question. I live near Evergreen Park, where my residents go. I live near Oak Lawn, where residents
go. And I live near, in terms of my residents, near Bedford Park, where they go. All of them
reinstated the one percent grocery tax how much money are we losing or would we be what we have
if we maintained the one percent grocery tax that was already there yeah before it was uh repealed
that we were getting i think just under 80 million dollars annually 80 million dollars in revenue
correct to the city okay I hope you understand and I got to say this for
this body everybody got to give something but this is something we were
already giving and this is something that many of our residents are still
paying I am of a I'm of a believer of not having even a bottle tax because I
got people running across those three cities that I just told you because they
don't want to pay a bottle tax but yet they are paying because they go get
water they go get other stuff that they are paying that 1% so we I'm saying it
to say I hope people are listening to the importance of
are listening to the importance of making sure that people in this in my opinion in this body
shouldn't push back on that or in the administration shouldn't push back on that also we should be
fighting for that 10 percent of that local government distributive fund to make sure those
things are reinstated so that because this city was doing well and we are the if chicago catch
cold this whole state catch a flu and so we should not be punished and things shouldn't happen at the
state level that punish chicago i think you're trying to say something yeah i have an answer
for you on your previous question okay if we were to have the uh rate reinstated to 10 percent
we'd be looking at around 250 million dollars in additional revenue coming to the city 250 million
and that rate today is 6.47 percent and then on the one percent we said how much 80 80 yeah
easy money on the table um can we this came out of a meeting we were just in um with alderman matt
Martin. And I thought about this. We were talking about the last mile delivery. Is it legal?
We all as drivers have to pay a city sticker. Is it legal to have
delivery companies, semis or whoever, that come into the city of Chicago,
buy either annual city sticker for dropping off using our roads a somebody may just come one time
a daily um city sticker or monthly is that legal is it possible i mean i don't know if
the ordinance is written to allow that is it legal
to allow that is it legal if we passed an ordinance would that be yeah that be legal
is that possible that i would defer to law on that it would be a department of law question
but i think what you're saying is that for the privilege of using our streets could we have some
sort of one-time permit or a sticker for commercial vehicles a annual one if you're here all the time
i don't care if you're from minnesota and you drive your truck here maybe once a month you may
want a you may buy that yearly sticker if you're here for just a month for a day a daily sticker
otherwise you get a ticket i'm just asking i'm just as we we're at 29 what i'm looking at and
reason why I'm asking these type of questions because technically we had 29
votes that's does not support this budget I'm not one of those 29 okay at
this point but my point is that so we got to come with some options and not
just complaints we had to come with some options we can ask a whole bunch of
questions here all day long and that's and that's just David Moore's opinion
but we have to come up with some solutions so i'm asking i'm just if somebody can look into that
and see that if we cannot get this budget off the ground is that an option and i laid the two things
we should be fighting for are clear that i just mentioned with the one percent and the lgdf the
local government distributed fund but also i'm asking about this i just want to defer to brian
carlson is there any do we have any mechanism for that sort of like a temporary or annual sticker
for commercial vehicles not that i'm aware of no okay i know we don't have it i'm i'm i i was
asking because i we we will look into it so can somebody look into it and and because we're going
and because we're going to have to get revenue
and I'll go on record and saying in a climate
where I'm seeing quarterly profits in the billions
with major corporations,
in a climate where I'm seeing those same quarterly profits
getting a tax break,
we know that the major billionaires
and billionaire corporations have to pay their fair share.
That's that's a given and and how we get there if it's a smaller fair share
so be it, but we're gonna have to figure this out as a
as a council but
everybody don't get to get out of here and skate easily and
Everyone has to put some skin in the game. There's gonna be a lot of questions asked here. But at the end of the day
We have to get back and we got to have to get structural and we just can't talk about one-time fixes
it has to be structural even if we have to get back to cpi because with cpi as it relates to
taxes if we don't get back to that and i want to know your opinion of that um cfo and budget
director what are what are we looking at in the future yeah regarding you know cpi and having
that, you know, it is certainly a responsible way of administering our taxes, you know,
the taxes that we impose.
Otherwise, the truth is your taxes are shrinking every year.
You know, numerically they may stay the same, but they're providing the city less service.
So I do think the CPI is a responsible way to build that in to, you know,
you do need to look at it and think area by area tax by tax there are some
tax-by-tax there are some areas maybe where it makes more sense than others
but in speaking in generalities it does make sense so that you aren't having to
find a new solution every year yeah thank you thank you chairman that's that's
all I have is a point of information turn down or add you to the list all
right gotcha oh all the miss Pizzotto says you can take it I would defer to
to finance chair well thank you to the happy committee chair um question on the package
delivery fee which um is going to generate nine million dollars can somebody walk me through how
that number was determined since you'd only know about amazon and you're not sure about the other
the third-party delivery people.
How did you arrive at $9 million, budget director?
Yeah, it's a number, you know,
certainly I didn't derive myself,
but ultimately the revenue is going to come
from the major players.
I understand that.
I'm asking you, how did you arrive
at the $9 million figure?
I'll hand it over to Gianni,
who was one of those who worked to get that number.
John Maffeo, Deputy Director for Revenue at OBM.
So the assumption is made off of roughly 50 million packages.
And then the percentage of that is roughly based off of Chicago's overall market
or economic share of the total.
So obviously we don't have a perfect data set for this.
So we looked at a bunch of different resources and available information online
and available information online and made estimates about some of the major players,
about what their market share is in the overall delivery space, and then applied, you know,
the national data that we get to what we think Chicago's portion of that would be.
Okay, so do you have that formula? I'm just pulling one revenue figure out the sky.
Can I get the detail on how you arrived at $9 million?
Absolutely.
Thank you. On the smart tax for fiscal year 26 and 27, that totals approximately $94 million
that was going to be used in the budget or this budget. Given the litigation that we're in,
what happens if the courts deem that we're not successful?
Right now, everything's been very favorable.
No, I didn't ask that. I asked you, what would you do if the court said we are not successful
in our lawsuit? If we don't win the lawsuit that net choices has against us?
Sure. If we don't win the lawsuit, then we need to stop collecting the tax and return the funding
that has been received thus far.
All right. And then you would still have more of a hole in the budget, right? So how are you
thinking about that i'll go back to my original answer right now that is not everything looks
very favorable okay you don't want to answer that uh last year we set aside 30 million dollars
in our budget for violence prevention violence reduction about 11 million of that went to
MPI, and another
$8 million went to
Aclavis. What happened to the rest of the
money?
There's
a wide
variety of programs that
that are administered through CDPH and through DFSS
that are all focused on CVI.
So they have several programs.
So you don't know the specifics of how that remaining money was spent
or is being spent?
It's being spent on the preexisting programs that we've had for years.
DFSS, they have, I think, maybe three different programs.
I'm sorry, Mr. Ernst.
I'm looking for specifics, and you're giving me verbiage.
Can I get through the chair then how the remaining money was spent,
who it went to, how much was spent?
And I'd like to have that before CDPH or DFSS comes before us.
Hold on, hold on.
What's your point?
Could he repeat the number of packages that he said that was based on?
Well, 50 million times 0.15 is 7.5 million.
So I don't think that's...
50 million packages is what he said.
But 50 million times 15 cents is 7.5 million.
So I...
Daily.
What's that?
Say it again.
Daily is the unit.
So just to work through the numbers in terms of the totality.
If it's a longer answer, I can save it for my time.
I just didn't know if I heard the number right.
Yeah, 50 million daily.
50 million packages daily?
Daily?
yes okay there's three million people in the city of chicago i don't think we're each receiving 15
packages a day no no no that's the those are the national numbers i was about to walk through
we'll take a deeper dive i just thought i misheard the number and now i'm confident
are you saying that's national it's a national number we'll dive into delving a little deeper
Well, your turn.
Yeah. So the mayor's own press release and the Tribune and Cranes talked about that jobs credit in three different ways. Can you explain to me what it is? How much is it going to cost? And I'll stop there if you can just.
i missed what you were jobs credit the jobs tax credit oh cita yes the cita program yes
sure i can talk through that uh so the cita program will for those for those uh corporations
that are required to pay the eet they will receive a rebate for any employees that they have
working in a CEDA area of the city.
So they will essentially not have to pay
the EET associated with those employees.
And is that subtracted from the,
does the $113.8 million estimate
take that rebate into account?
No, it does not.
That, there's a, we're estimating a $12 million number
associated with the credit.
it so it's about 101 million net thank you for that um there are two new positions in the mayor's
office for 180 000 that's paid for by the sewer fund what are those positions for that there's a
new position in the sewer fund um that was had been uh for a few years been funded through a
grant and that grant has ended so it's moved uh to to the sewer fund and what does that position do
fund and what does that position do um are those two positions yeah and i thought they were new
positions they're new positions it's new it's new to the fund to the sewer fund yeah what are they
for uh it was explained to me at one point um what that what their grant was focused on
let me see if i can remember okay because the mayor's office doesn't come before us so
i figured you wouldn't know the answer okay could you get that for us before we uh wrap today
certainly there's one million dollars in an increase in the special program costs and the
cannabis regulation tax under the mayor's office what's those funds for so that's we're just
reflecting the revenue that comes in and actually what we're doing is appropriating an extra million
dollars because there is sort of a carryover surplus that's been running so we're making
those dollars available because of you know the revenue continues to come strong but there has
been underspending in the past so um it's bumping up this if you look at the prior year uh balance
in the on the revenue side you'll see the increase there i know but what are we increasing it for
to do what that's that's to be determined and obviously if it doesn't get used next year to
carry over to the following year to the chief financial officer uh the 75 million from the
parking meter fund I think
meter fund um i think the the alderman when we passed this we passed it because we wanted it to
support the pension liability i don't think our goal was to maintain our liability but to
reduce it so assuming that that those dollars um are allocated above and beyond
on what we pay statutorily and our supplemental payment,
would our best bang for our buck
be allocating that increased payment in 2026 or in 2027?
And what impact, positive or negative,
would that have on our ratings with the credit agencies?
uh thank you for that question chairwoman the way we have the pension payment tread
tread water analysis set up would mean that that would just simply reduce the supplemental
payment i i understand what you're getting at and that is getting at
a payment beyond the tread water basis um because we have made the supplemental pension payment
And again, I must note that I am, I no longer work for a rating agency because we've made
the supplemental pension payment in 26 and it is budgeted for in 27.
You know, if this, if the older core decides to make it, I don't think it would make a
difference rating wise.
um we've we've already sort of hit the pension check box in terms of what they're looking for
um it it would help the funds and money earlier to funds is always better so that they can invest it
is always better so that they can invest it more long term and it does take a while to invest
an amount of money that large but per the third amended agreement section 2.3 it is completely
up to the aldermanic core as to how and when that is distributed to the pension funds so assuming
Assuming that you don't have a particular position on 27 or 26.
I do not.
All right.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll take a round two.
He's got a response for you as well.
Chairwoman, so related to the sewer fund positions in the mayor's office, that grant was related to water policy.
So that work will continue.
and they work very closely with the Department of Environment.
So they're going to help us get our money from DuPage County?
I don't think their focus is debt collection.
Okay.
You want to answer that, Mr. Belsky?
I don't think we're...
I think the question about DuPage County
is whether they're going to continue to buy water from us,
and that's a ways off.
But in terms of collections, I mean, we collect 98% of our water.
From DuPage County?
What about the other suburbs?
I'm sorry, Chair, that just...
No.
Just a question.
So there are a number of local governments within Cook County
that we sell water to where we do have deficits um harvey being the largest of those deficits
i believe it is 80 million dollars in total owed to the city in terms of past due water bills um and
water bills um and i'm just getting to that in my folder because i definitely have that exact number
and i think i'm right but i want to of course provide you with not dupage though okay yeah
not the page um dupage just uh when he said water policy that just made me think of a few other
questions sorry have we collected anything um well she's looking up the number have we collected
anything comptroller from the water the money that's owed to us by the suburban um so yeah
that's what she's that's what she's looking at now yeah i mean we have um several communities
i think harvey robbins um i've been out there to meet with them personally with their mayors
and we have tried to put them on payment plans you know there's a lot of poverty in these
communities their infrastructure is also in bad shapes there's a lot of leakage of water
so we try to work with them just like we would work with any individual that does not have the
full means to pay so we've entered into different agreements with them to pay over time we've also
talked to them about or tried to suggest to them federal state county sources where they might be
able to get money to fix up their infrastructure um so we do collect some money from them but not
what's fully owned owed yeah um chief financial officer you don't have to go through the pages
i'll get that number through the chair thank you make that suggestion as well so um alderman
Sposato. Yes, Alderman Villegas. Provided through the chair. This was information on
villages in Cook County that have outstanding water bills. And what they've paid to date.
and in water bills and what they've paid to date um and what has been paid um in the current fiscal
year thank you um alderman sposato followed by alderman viegas uh thank you chairman thank you
all for appearing before us today appreciate it um hopefully you don't take anything personal
from anybody today so it's a tough time and uh everybody's on edge a little bit and uh we really
want to get this resolved. So I don't think anybody doesn't want to see this resolved.
I don't really have any questions. I just have two comments to make. Earlier, I didn't want to
give a point of information. I know somebody asked, how did the police determine how we're in
there? I mean, that's certainly a question for police, but I believe OPSA and the police determine
how many officers they're going to hire for that year, and they work between each other,
and that's the same with police and fire. And then piggybacking on what my esteemed colleague
from the ninth ward said uh something that really bothers me um not so sure i think how good it is
or not and that's the one summer chicago kids program um yeah we want to help kids yeah we
want to give them jobs but one can we really afford it and two i had a really bad experience
with it so um i don't believe there's any oversight upon these organizations that are
getting these jobs i don't know if these kids are really working the 10 weeks 20 hours a week
further paying everything and i'm not asking for any answers i'm just i'm just venting right now
so you guys don't have to respond so uh you know two years ago not last year i had a kid that was
trying to get a couple kids the job uh unfortunately i was told they didn't get the job um the one kid
gets an email said sorry at this point um we're not able to hire you and literally hours later
he gets an email saying if he doesn't get his hours in by five o'clock that day he's not going
to be paid for the following week which he never even worked so um but my my my suggestion is and
And I'm just throwing this out there, and I've talked with Carlos about this
and the Park District, and I think these jobs,
jobs and i know we stole them out to agencies but they we should be given every person as a park
every one of our parks i'm guessing i don't i didn't talk to everybody so i shouldn't say every
park but all my parks can't take as many kids that they want to go there because they don't have
enough supervisors for the camps so if we had more kids working at the parks in the camps that
means we could put more kids in the camps that means more parents could be relieved a little
more kids would get jobs so my suggestion is everybody who has a park you get at least five
kids five of these one summer Chicago kids for every one of your parks and then also who knows
my ward or anybody else's ward here better than we do so I think if you give each of us five kids
to clean up in our ward fix up things in our ward put up take down I mean I hire a kid all year long
you know 15-20 hours a week just to clean up fix up take down so my thing is whoever is listening
from one summer Chicago give every alderman five kids to work in their community fix it up clean
it up and give every park five kids to work those summer camps and and that's it that that's all
there's more of a comment so but I know you all have nothing to do with that we know people are
listening those of you that get these jobs give them back to us give them back to our parks give
back to us to clean up our neighborhood thank you chairman i would crack a joke but i'm
crackers but yeah we know that oh man come on man come on come on come on
the spazato jobs program that's a good one so all right
somebody off dearborn but we'll leave that alone uh alderman viegas
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to put a finer point on that water that's owed by the municipalities that are having a hard time paying for it. Have we tried to figure out if Springfield can help with some of these municipalities?
out of springfield can help with some of these municipalities um given the some of the some of
the municipalities are having a hard time with their infrastructure as well as just paying right
i mean riverdale's a really good example of that and a lot of their issues have to do with broken
water mains um we are having comprehensive conversations with springfield about water
policy in the region that includes the dupage situation and so certainly the you know outstanding
obligations of south suburban entities will be a part of that as we you know endeavor basically
to continue to provide clean and affordable water to the region okay
Okay. One of my colleagues mentioned about the corporations and billionaires paying their fair
share. Through the PPLT, is it the actual companies and corporations that are actually paying
that tax, or is it just a pass-through to the consumer? And do we have the authority to actually
have those corporations pay the tax instead of passing it to the consumer?
want me to cover that yeah brian um defer to brian carlson how i mean i think the the analogy is
when you go to the walgreens pay for a bag there's a tax question is how does this work
given that these are bulk deliveries from a company
thank you for your question brian carlson deputy director of tax administration and enforcement
so the payer of the pplt is essentially who's using the product being leased
the product being leased, whether it's software or a piece of equipment. So if the corporation
or its employees themselves are using a software or tech lease, then the corporation is going to
be the party bearing the responsibility of the tax. If it's a product being leased to a customer
or an individual, then the individual would pay the tax. Right. So we know that the PPLT is not
a tax on tech per se, like Google, Microsoft. It's not a tax on them. It's actually
a product that they're serving that provides service to the customer.
And then that consumer pays the PPLT tax. Is that accurate?
It depends on the use of the tech in question. So there are all kinds of different tech products.
Microsoft 365, if a corporation is using it in order to provide services for their corporation,
Microsoft itself is not paying the tax.
It's company ABC based in Chicago that's actually paying the PPLT tax.
Is that correct?
Correct.
Okay.
So then when we're talking about, or I shouldn't say when the administration is talking about
taxing billionaire tech companies is the pplt in essence doing that so it's it's taxing
tech companies on software that they would be using to run their businesses
if you're asking the question about microsoft products specifically that individual i'm using
microsoft because there's a lot of small businesses that use office 365 for their daily business
emails calendars etc when they pay for their subscriptions
When they pay for their subscriptions through the PPLT that was at 15, now it's at 20, it's not Microsoft that's paying that additional PPLT tax.
It's company ABC that's utilizing the service.
Is that correct?
In your example, that's correct.
Yes, Alderman.
So then when folks are saying that we're taxing big tech corporations, is that an accurate analysis of that, or is that a little misleading there?
Because you're not taxing Microsoft.
I mean, unless you're saying because they collect the tax and then pay it and then give it to the city that that's a tax, but it's actually been passed down.
Is that correct?
i understand what you're saying and it's these large companies use a fair amount of technology
themselves to run their businesses so it's kind of both so what's the percentage what what do you
think the percentage would be from the p on a pplt tech versus actual services right because i mean
there's been a lot of examples that i think pplt a lot of people didn't know pplt went down to that
level whether you're like a tuxedo or or home depot do-it-yourselfer or you know you're doing
a quinceanera for your family where you're providing uh tents and chairs and that there's
that there's a cost to that so do we know what the percentage is of what tech pplt taxes versus
other services like divi as well i mean like divi bikes so there are between 4 000 and 5 000
registered payers of pplt right now and and how much how much of those are tech related
the payers themselves i believe is somewhere
Payers themselves, I believe, is somewhere around 60, 70 percent of registered payers.
And hold on one second.
Let me cut you off.
Audubon Burnett had a point of information.
It follows the same line of questioning.
Who are the is this administered through the company that provides the service or does the end user pay the tax directly to us?
Could you say that one more time?
Who pays the tax?
Is it the service provider?
Do they pay it to us, and then they distribute it out?
Or does the end user pay it to the city?
So the provider collects from the end user and remits it to the city.
Alderman?
So the provider, to answer for the 27th award, the provider is Microsoft.
They go ahead and collect the tax and provide it to the city?
From their customers using the product in Chicago.
Yes.
Okay.
So again, is it, I like to see the percentage.
You said 4,000 to 5,000 categories.
I'd like to find out the larger tech corporations that are continuously being named, what percentage
of that is actually part of the PPLT categories that you've identified?
Yeah, we can get you that through the chair.
Yeah, appreciate that.
And Divi bikes also are part of that PPLT as well, correct?
Yes, they are.
Okay. So we're taxing micromobility options for folks to get to and from work, right?
We're taxing property that's being rented to be used in Chicago. Yes.
You increase it. Okay, cool. Thank you. And then CFO, you mentioned, one of my colleagues mentioned
earlier around the um the way the budget's structured now and i know you've mentioned
a couple times that you're no longer work at fitch rating company and i and i respect that
that but just wanted to get your perspective you had meant you said something where given the way
that it's structured that potentially um the rating companies could look at it as negative or
a downward or something like that if i want to remember i'm not sure which of my statements you
referring to um hold on let her let her finish yeah right i'm just kidding let her let her go
ahead oh um so what i was referring to is that on every rating report that we receive from a rating
agency um as part of that report they're required by the sec to provide actions that that city in
in the case Chicago, could take that might lead to an upgrade
and actions that that city, and this means Chicago,
that could lead to a downgrade.
And so given the fact that I'm no longer at a rating agency
and I'm no longer part of those deliberations,
I think looking at those, if you're concerned about rating movement,
if you look at those sensitivities, that will give you real insight into what is going to
trigger their action one way or another. And I think, you know, when the mayor
appointed you to be the CFO, I think he was taking a look at, or maybe he was taking a look at,
given the fact that you came from the rating agencies, providing advice as to how to continue
to move us in the right direction. Do you think this budget does that? So I stated something
earlier, which is that, and this is something I learned in my own state and local budgeting class
that I've taken early in my grad school career, right, that you
grad school career, right, that you look at, you don't just look at a current budget, you look at
the out-year budgets to determine balance. Because what is structural, truly structural in this
budget, should show up as structural in those out-year budgets. And so that the gaps should
be reduced accordingly, you know, and that helps you see we still have a structural mismatch
between our revenues and our expenditures um and and that's actually very and what's your
recommendation what's your recommendation as a cfo to close that it's to to find the match between
those right i i i don't do policy and i'm not i'm not a member of this body i got you um and i'm not
the budget director but it is to to find a match gotcha that's structural mr chairman just got one
more question. Comptroller, you mentioned that we've collected 80% of the debt in the last three
years. Is that accurate? Yeah, that's correct. I mean, it's a blend. Some of them were collecting
it, like water 90%, traffic for vehicle violations 65%. So when you take a blend,
And I mean, this kind of speaks to the outstanding debt we have.
We're very effective in collecting debt that is three years old to today.
And through the chair, unless you have that information, what is that amount?
Because you said, what is that amount that we've collected over the last three years?
We've collected 80% of it.
Just curious as to what.
We can provide that through the chair by each bucket, each type of debt?
Yes.
Okay.
We can provide that through the chair.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
I did want to just mention to you about the state and the municipalities that are having trouble paying debt.
The state does have something called the State Revolving Fund, where they take...
the state revolving fund where they take money from the federal government and the state matches
it they put it in a pool and then they provide low interest loans by over collateralizing them
with that pool they provide low interest loans municipalities they actually have a one percent
hardship rate for low-income communities and they can pay it off over uh you know a longer period
to tie in the normal bond, and we make them aware of that program.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Comptroller. Thank you, Mr.
On the Nugent, followed by Alderman Vasquez.
Thank you, Chairman.
It's been a really interesting conversation today,
and I know some of my colleagues have brought up LGDF,
and several of my colleagues and I, 20-plus last year,
fought very hard to ensure that the LGDF was maintained and not decreased.
that was really important to us.
We also fought very hard against Bill and Springfield 41-71,
which would have took away our ability to collect on sports betting.
So in light of that, I just, what is the plan?
Because soon tight, what's the plan for revenue in the veto session?
So I can't speak directly.
you know obviously we have a team that goes down to springfield um that works on that but we can
definitely get you a full sort of overview of that through the chair but with with all due respect i
would assume that's a conversation you're having with iga this is the budget director i would
assume that you guys work in concert to talk about revenue absolutely and so you know one thing that
was very clear as we weren't going to talk about putting
Very clear is we weren't going to talk about putting speculative revenue in from a veto session.
So it wasn't really part of the conversation in developing this budget.
Okay.
I would have thought we might have at least a little bit in a plan for the veto session with Springfield at this point.
Does anybody have perhaps anything to add on that?
Anybody else?
i believe we are going to pursue the ability to levy a delivery tax okay
delivery tax in the veto session is that am i getting that right that is so just so we're
clear yes that is this administration thinks you could get 71 votes in the house because you're at
three-fifths in the veto session and 36 in the senate on delivery tax please don't tell me that
you're you're trying to add that into the budget because that's these are not items that's magic
the budget um and this is this is this is coming from iga i okay i i don't i think jonathan and i
are both not as aware as to what is being planned for veto session um and so we can provide that
from them through the chair i just presume because our next rego schedule meeting is in december
that you would have a plan for veto session, but that doesn't seem to be good.
Yeah, I think it sounds like we need to allow IGA to present what their strategy is for
veto session and communicate that to members of this body.
And I'd probably best leave it at that, because I don't think there's been anything spelled
out fully for everyone's consumption, other than some high-level pieces that have probably
been talked about in the news.
in the news but beyond that a specific strategy that things need to be communicated directly by
them thank you mr chair alderman thank you um i know we've been talking today about borrowing
about 200 plus million for the the settlements what is that if we borrow for that what does
that look like in a few years how much what does the interest look like on that type of borrowing
What are we going to owe on what we borrow now?
Thank you, Alderman Nugent, for that question.
I did ask one of our banking partners to run numbers for us.
Keep in mind that their numbers at the current rates, their numbers in the current environment,
and that is all subject to change based upon when we would be in the capital markets.
Um, but if for essentially a $350 million taxable geo bond, um, total cost of interest
is, sorry, I do have this unlike the water thing, uh, six, all in 6.923%.
And that corresponds to, give me one second, 540, basically $190 million in interest on a $350 million bond.
Say that one more time.
$100 what?
$190 million of interest on a $350 million taxable bond, given where rates are.
so we're going to owe 540 million dollars on this money that we're borrowing or it's based upon the
numbers run by one of our banking partners in the current rate environment that is that is
what it shows and that that assumes a seven-year maturity
and that that assumes a seven-year maturity so i just want to really emphasize this point
with my colleagues we've heard today from our folks in the panel that they've it's pretty
unprecedented to borrow for settlements um it has changed the budget gap by 200 million
it sounds like from the experts in the panel that rating agencies look at the bigger number anyway
and then we'd be tacking on millions of dollars so this would be 540 million i have i have pretty
grave concerns about um this portion of the budget um i just want to move on to to something else
while i have the opportunity um i know there was talks about um last year when eyi found about
i don't know 17 to 25 million dollars in benefits savings the city could have taken and some require
union approval some don't um it's it's my understanding the administration hasn't moved on
on any of those and like why not what's why wouldn't we look to those what's the status
are we thinking about doing that this year yeah there thank you for that question we there's one
One area we have moved on, which was higher benefits charged to non-union employees to
bring them back into parity with the union, what union employees pay in benefits.
So to go into more detail, I will hand it over to Kevin Murphy, who's been OBM's representative
of in in the the discussions around benefit reform yeah thank you for that question kevin
murphy managing deputy budget director um as jonathan mentioned um we removed the salary cap
for non-represented union uh non-represented employees
non-represented employees our union employees have a salary cap on their contribution rates
currently caps for all of our non-police employees is 130 000 per year so they pay a percentage
that we also pay as non-represented employees we have no salary cap another thing that we
The city has been in discussions with what we call the Labor Management Cooperation Committee,
the LMCC, which again is for the unions excluding FOP, to have discussions about plan design
changes.
One thing that the city and the LMCC did agree to was changes in how we identify employees
for what we call the HIP, which is a plan to ensure that people with chronic illnesses
are getting continuity of care so that they don't cost more in claims later on.
That was very stale information that the city used under the wellness program that was started
under the Emanuel administration.
So that will lead to some savings.
um we are in uh very close to begin bargaining uh 2027 all of our union agreements expire
um and are eligible for negotiation um and so there's been a lot of discussions about
um the the current cost of health insurance and the inflation we've seen as a city in the last
two years really um that that have exceeded uh our typical growth rate of eight percent
okay thank you for that um so last thing i just wanted to ask about um we added about 131 million
in the corporate fund spending um this year and there was a section in there there's 32.1 million
labeled other investments what is that yes
investments what is that yeah so that is not new investment in that it's not going to new
programming or expanded program ultimately when you're sort of working through a budget when
you're comparing what we have forecasted to ultimately or what comes in from departments
there's discrepancies we may say this line we anticipate in the forecast this line will go up
by three percent it may end up going up by four and a half percent and you compound that across
you know the thousands of lines we have and ultimately it's you end up up or down
um when you sort of compile all those this is it's really like an adjustment
it's like an adjustment to the forecast that isn't related to a new program or
you know greater services things like that
so if if your projections are all great is it a 32 million dollar slush fund that you have in
there or like what happens what happens if you if there's just money in there that help help me
it gets just it's distributed across all the departments so when streets and sanitation
submits their budget to us in our forecast we have we may have anticipated that they go up by
x percentage when ultimately they know their contracts better maybe a contract was up for
renewal and it ended up coming in at seven percent higher we don't have we during forecast
we're not we're not able to go line by line contract by contract to try to land on the exact
amount so this is a reconciliation after the forecast has been issued and then just as if it
doesn't zero out do you put where do you put that money if it doesn't zero out this is a way for it
to reconcile with each department can i add an example that might be useful please so
So, for instance, think of procurement or even my CFO department, right?
If we had some sort of software service that was increasing costs next year by 15% to 20%
and the budget office would not have insight into that.
They were just, they just, they base it off of last year's numbers.
And so we would come to the budget office and say, hey, this is a necessary program
for us to do what we do and that all gets rolled up into that additional 36 million dollars um and
that's across all departments and all budgets do all all local governments do that and compared to
our 6.5 billion dollar budget it's actually it's a very small amount that's very helpful thank you
um that's all i have chairman thank you okay uh alderman vasquez followed by alderman martin
thank you chairman thank you all for being here um i've got a number of questions that i will
send through the chair i think about over a dozen but we'll just send them directly so we can get
those um i'll start with kind of something that's a little near and dear to me the smart streets
program so in what i've seen what's projected for the next year is 12 million i believe was the
number but we had a hearing two weeks before where we were told it was six million so i'm
trying to figure out what the difference is i mean it's six million for math purposes but why it's
jerk uh i think probably the the the driver there is uh the cta reached out to us and
they love these cameras on their buses the plan for our expansion was to have it i think maybe
48 buses 46 more which goes up to 50 something and then yeah adding 46 more um they they reached
out to the cfo's office and i'm sorry to dof's office and said let's can we bump that up to a
hundred so we we built that into the budget the additional
We built that into the budget, the additional revenue, with a bit of additional costs to get it up and running.
So that really caused the jump in expected revenue that we should see next year.
Okay, if you could send any level of modeling or documentation as to what that increase is, I'd be curious.
I think there's potentially concern around some of the numbers that they're ambitious.
at that's the nicest way to put it which is then leading to a less confidence that's what the
numbers might add up to and so literally two weeks before hearing half of the amount that
what we're being told now was a thing to just set off my radar so okay uh next i can address that
oh sure yeah and thanks for that question um we we've been working with uh uh one vendor
on the implementation of smart streets and we've we've had some issues so we have
done pilots with three other companies and because of that it's taken time then to implement
so the implementation schedule this year was slower than what we expected and i think
based on the tests that we've done with these new companies we do expect to we'll have to spend
four million uh but we believe between expanding citywide and going to a hundred buses next year
we'll be able to meet that number sure and then are the those expenses also factored in the budget
as far as spending whatever many millions to get the cameras that's correct that's correct but the
12 million is a gross number um so we probably closer to like eight million uh net and then
once of course those costs are sunk we should just expect revenues to come in
succeeding years okay at level um what so i i'm no fan
i i'm no fan of borrowing the amount that we're talking to borrow for the misconduct
for the 480 million over the two years um what existing unused bond authority could be used for
the same purpose do we have any other funds we could be borrowing from rather than having to
ask for more so um thank you for that question alderman uh we have no unused settlement and
judgment taxable geo bonding authority we do have quite a bit five billion of unused geo bonding
authority that is all for capital improvement projects and the differential there is that
you know we are told that a capital project is going to start and they need the money and then
there's a delay right and so there's a lot of authority that exists there but it's all for
capital projects none of it is for taxable settlements and judgments in fact in 2026 we
did not have sufficient bonding authority which is why we have um 120 million dollars which i think
is part of the watt settlement on a line of credit which is as you probably know a short-term
financing vehicle that we need to take out through a longer term bond financing okay um
and then if i if i were correctly was it 190 million we're talking in interest
based upon the numbers run on that particular day
in the interest rate environments yes what is subject to change right like if we issued in
january january is typically a better month to be in the market it's often much more favorable to
issuers um but i can't predict the market for you and you know um is there um to give you a ballpark
number of something that it could be you know if we were in the market today that's what that
two day that's what that would look like is there any any way to estimate what a range would look
like what the lowest amount would be or highest is there like a window a lot of it depends on
the corpus of what we're borrowing for right so if you borrow less money then it's less costly
it's you pay less in principle and interest if you borrow more you pay more in principle
an interest right just sort of the way that works sure um so i you know i have that run for you i
don't have a ballpark but i wouldn't unless we fundamentally see a change in rates um
your estimate is kind of what it is right i gotcha that is and consider that you know
we're paying that off in a short period of time um because it is a settlement and judgment so
that that annual debt service is higher um right by nature of not spreading it out over
certain amount of time where it all adds up i got you none of those feel great uh but thank you for
that uh i i got questions related more to like part-time staffing here at the city and i'll say
for the ward offices is something that's come up for a while now because the benefits for the
part-time employees once they've reached a certain hourly threshold was originally something that was
being covered by finance general and then last year a number of us got word that the ward offices
were now taking on that cost even though we didn't get any level of increase in budget
and there were actually encumbrances upon our funds so what does that look like for 2027
in sure i will let kevin murphy answer that question thank you alderman for that question
kevin murphy managing deputy budget director um through discussions we uh we have budgeted for
those costs for any potential part-time staff that may have become pension qualified as you know we
As you know, we wanted to ensure that the employees had the benefits they had rights to.
Our concern was just about the cost not being budgeted for.
It is accounted for in Finance General this year in our regular pension payment.
When you say this year, is that 26 or going forward in 27?
So there was agreement that the city would cover the cost for any employees for this year as well.
We have budgeted for that cost in FY27.
Who agreed?
we were waiting for 27 so i wonder who agreed on the other end it's in the it's in the recommended
appropriation it's up to you to counsel to to decide if you want to approve that or not so for
clarity on my end in 2027 does finance general take that cost again it's built into the the
contribution the city's paying to the pension okay yes yes yes yes yes or no they're super easy
because when we paid it still means the same thing but it's coming from our office
so clarity would be great um so geez louise
is there you're not paying can you same thing we saw last year before related to encumbrances
are encumbrances now on the budget and if so where are they line itemed out i'm sorry what
are you asking me yeah are encumbrances in the budget is that your question yeah so
So our understanding is we were told a certain amount that we had to operate with.
And then after we passed the budget,
we're then spoken to by the budget director at that point to say there were
encumbrances.
So we couldn't even use the money that we were had allocated to spend for
turnover, uh, period to hold on to money. Cause we didn't have enough.
Yeah. We, we, uh, the,
the city council approved a budget that had turnover assigned to every ward
office that is not in the FY 27 budget.
Okay. So then I might, again, it's a different director acting director now.
so one should not expect to have encumbrances thrust upon us again after a budget like we
had in past years there's a middle amount of turnover that's assigned for permanent council
staff uh but that does not apply to council reward staff okay
to council award staff okay um for we saw a pretty substantial increase in finance this year
but not much headcount increase so it's up five positions fte with budget increase going towards
a 32.7 million increase in professional and technical services um what's driving the 138.3
percent jump in outside contracting uh to to finance um well the uh you're saying non-personnel
yeah there seemed to be an increase about 32 million but it's not headcount so you'll need
five headcount a lot of that is the uh a lot of that is the technology uh implementation for smart
streets okay you know people think you just put cameras on vehicles you don't you have to map the
area you have to test it make sure that the evidence is going to be accurate so sorry and
i'd like a round to you but just to follow up when you're saying round two no okay okay can i say
also there there were some costs that were in finance general that we moved to their department
because ultimately when we looked at them they were departmental costs and it just didn't make
sense for them to be sitting in finance general so could you could you send through the chat like
a breakdown of that just so i had an understanding of like what part smart street what's the other
one yeah yeah and it's it's really that's across all funds because we're talking about costs that
were cost allocated so yeah i appreciate it thank you all right you got you for round two alderman
martin thank you chair good afternoon everybody i have a few requests through the chair that i want
to start with one is uh to provide a detailed breakdown of the structural solutions that are
proposed to fill the $882 million gap and then also detail which solutions are one time in nature
as opposed to structural. Second, I'd like...
Second, I'd like a line item breakdown of the $119.8 million in savings in the proposal, including the $52.2 million attributed to EY implementation with the initiative timing amount and whether each saving is one time or recurring.
and then lastly i'd like a list of which specific positions are proposed for elimination like not
just a general number but line by line which ones are proposed for elimination and which ones would
be subject to a hiring freeze um shifting away from the through the chair requests what's the
projected budget gap for fy 2028 if the budget that's been proposed is approved
that's something we typically uh we run those numbers once we have a finalized budget we
rerun our forecast for the future year to see where that that leaves us i think obviously
there's still a lot of decisions that need to be made before we have an approved budget but at that
time we then do a do a rerun of our forecast to see where we sit next year based on the forecast
that was shared a few months ago do you expect it to go up down or stay level because part of
the question behind the question is if we see a proposed budget that's 56 structural what is the
impact of that on the fy 2028 budget like are we talking about more or less than 882 million dollars
sure it should if we have structural fixes built into our budget gap it should help reduce our
gap for next year okay um my understanding is that the proposed budget includes three layoffs
to the office of inspector general i'm curious why that is and why the administration has said
there are no layoffs in this budget sure you know they are an independent office and they they are
office and they they are an independent office what does that mean relative to any other department
in the budget book ultimately these are decisions that that the office of inspector general made
so they asked for they proposed three position three layoffs because we're not talking about
closing vacant positions it's so i could talk about the inspector general and it would be his
position that he prepared their budget people the the budget they submitted to
us included layoffs yes did you have any questions about that in terms of of
course yes we spoke through it and he walked us through his thought process on
that and the administration supports the three layoffs in that department again
he's in he he runs an independent office would you say that about any other
department uh no we're not not so that's the only that's the only department in the budget book that
you would not push back on any proposed layoffs if they were to come to you with it uh would i
push back on any other office it would be a case-by-case situation okay well if you can
share through the chair what your assessment is of what if any impact those layoffs would have
on that department's functioning that would be great and i'll ask the inspector general
independently, that same question. Shifting gears to the police department, we talked earlier about
132 positions that would propose to be civilianized. However, year after year after year,
we see real struggles associated with filling civilian positions in particular in that department
and of course elsewhere. What changes will CPD, OPSA, DHR collectively be making to do a better
job of filling those positions so that we're not hearing mid-year that that work is still being
done by sworn officers yeah i think thank you that's a that's a great question um i think what
I think what I've heard from CPD over the last several months
as we've sort of talked through this plan
is they understand there's a real need
to move to civilianization.
They've asked for these 132 positions in order to do so.
And so we've granted them those positions.
It will be, as you stated, it will
be for OPSA to work with CPD to prioritize these positions but I've from what I've heard from both
of those departments there is a that is a priority for for them next year does OBM understand if there
will be any changes associated with the hiring process for the civilians to speed up the filling
of those 132 positions what I can speak to is the pro the part of the process that flows through
my department what we've done in just the last two years since I've been there
we have well ultimately what we do is at the beginning of the year we talk
through a hiring plan with CPD to create a full schedule of both sworn and
unsworn timing throughout the year when when they will be hired so that
ultimately there's no issue month to month around what positions they can post which ones they can't
it's predetermined in january so that then they can just run with that plan for the rest of the
year so opsa you you think would be best positioned to talk about what the hiring plan would be for
next year well it hasn't been changes yeah it hasn't been we will work with them to develop
that once a budget so my my question i'll move on is is just the issue i'm trying to get is what
changes can people speak to can the department speak to right now that will be implemented next
be implemented next year. So I'll follow up with OPSA and I may have some through the chair
follow-ups. Lastly, I wanted to push back on this idea that we want to keep bonding out for these
police misconduct lawsuits. And I know that there's been some discussions about these being
legacy costs. That's true to an extent, but I think that obscures how long we've been aware of
this, including when some of these cases have been filed. Because even just looking at the
Guevara cases that we settled. One was filed in 2019, another 2023, 2023 again, 2023 again,
and again, and again, and again, and again, 24, and then 23 several times. And so these are filings
that we've been aware of for some time to say nothing about the certificates of innocence or
anything else that was associated with them prior to the dates on which those complaints were filed.
So I have significant concerns, as I shared last year, about cases, whether it was the Guevara cases, the Watts cases, or plenty of other cases that weren't in those global lawsuits that we've been aware of for years, but we failed to treat as the ongoing expenses, operating expenses that they are.
So just last year in 2025, we spent $159 million on police misconduct lawsuits that were not tied to either of the global settlements.
And then this year, we spent just between January and June, because the year has not ended, of course, another $225 million.
We're talking about putting aside the global settlements, an additional $120 million for this year that has, of course, not ended, and then another $100 million for next year.
Again, not tied to these global settlements.
And then you compare just the amount of interest that was associated with what we borrowed or we approved the borrowing for last year.
That was $70 million.
$52 million of that was just for police misconduct lawsuits.
million of that was just for police misconduct lawsuits the rest was firefighter back pay that
again we knew about for several years and the money was set aside until it wasn't and then now
190 million dollars give or take hopefully that goes down we're talking about just in a two-year
period over well over 200 million dollars in interest payments alone which i won't go through
like all the departments whose budgets are dwarfed by that or individual programs that each of us
like. So this idea that we're spreading it out over time, even over many years, I think we're
losing an opportunity to put our foot down and say we're going to treat these in a more responsible
fashion. The University of Chicago Harris School, they issued a report in August of 2026, so just a
few months ago, where they found, and I'm just going to quote, Chicago's approach stands out for
its persistent under-budgeting and reliance on backfills and debt issuance. And the report was
just on police misconduct lawsuits and then towards the end they opine that chicago maintains
the same budget for cpd settlements and judgments for multiple years in a row consistently overshooting
this budget by a wide margin this is an indication that the city's current loss recognition processes
are inadequate to use for any meaningful budgetary purposes does the mayor's office agree or disagree
with that assessment and why so i i think what maybe is missed there is that you know we talk
about structural revenue we all know what that means what is a little less common is is
structural versus non-structural expenses these aren't expenses that we think will persist year
over year. I get projections from DOL around where they think future years, what they think
their costs will be around settlements and judgments, and they anticipate.
settlements and judgments and they anticipate our costs coming down significantly so to build
revenue into our budget for something for a cost that won't be there in a couple of years
ultimately is is sort of sort of solving a short-term issue with a with a longer-term solution
I respectfully disagree with that. I think, one, we have not seen details around the analysis you're talking about with regard to the law department. I think about, say, the Board of Elections. This time of year, their budget is expected to grow. We don't hold it constant each year over a four-year period. We recognize that during election years, we're going to spend more money, and so there's an ebb and flow to that.
I don't see that over the course of the last several years in terms of what's reflected in
the budget book, despite dozens of cases being filed many, many years ago. I think that that
is a real problem. And as a result, we're risking spending hundreds of millions of dollars over a
multi-year period just in interest. And unlike streets and bridges and sidewalks, I think you'd
hard-pressed to go to somebody 10 15 20 years from now and saying that we want you or even just
like five years from now we we want you to kick in more money to cover the costs of lawsuits that
we've known about for at that point 10 years so i i would certainly encourage not just in this
budget but subsequent budget cycles we up that number just like we did this most recent year
involving police overtime i think that that was good i think that that sort of transparency
helps us communicate with our residents about the challenging but necessary decisions we need
to make. Thank you. Thank you, Audubon Martin. Just kind of touching on what Audubon Martin's
speaking of, this year's total budgeted amount for settlement.
Total budgeted amount for settlements and judgments, excluding, for lack of a better term, extraordinary events, is what?
Or when you say this year, you're talking 2026?
2027.
2027.
How much do we have in the corporate budget for settlements and judgments?
Correct.
We have $132 million across CPD, CFD, and Finance General.
and given his statement does that number appear to be adequate
and i'm backing out the and i'm asking you to back out extraordinaries we're talking about
like long term is that what we need right like let me finish let me finish let him answer
I think that is something, that's a great question that we've been wrestling with, with Department of Law.
I think that is to be determined exactly what we need, but it is not, it's not widely out of range.
Chairman Dowling and Alderman Lopez, go ahead.
Yeah, the total number he's giving, the law department's number is $82 million, right?
You said across all departments, $132 million.
Right. How much is it just for the law department alone?
None of it sits in the law department's budget.
It sits in CPD, it sits in FIRE, and it sits in Finance General.
right i understand that there but cp but the law department does have a budgeted line item
which was 82 million it's been 82 million that that's the that's the amount that had been in
um in police we've increased it i think to 90 million this year okay that's the
I was just trying to get you to from $82 million.
All right.
So the $90, you're saying it's $132 million in total.
And so it's $132 million in total.
And if we back out Watts and Guevara, what did we spend?
So we have, in addition to what's in the corporate budget,
we have another $100 million.
dollars if but i was just gonna say the 120 is is the 26 that we plan to bond out and then there's
350 of payments in 27 that we plan to bond out um i would also just put on the table that to avoid
this going forward i would highly suggest that we engage with an actual an actuarial firm that can
do analysis and probabilistic projections of what this looks like. Our sister agencies, our
Cook County has been doing that for 15 years, and they're able to look at much more closely what a
judgment might actually look like. And so if we want to start budgeting differently, I think we
need to start analyzing the numbers differently as well. So again, if you back out Watts and
Guevara what what what is our spend this year what what do we what do we spend you said 100
on top of the 132 so that's 232 correct that we would have spent this year that we will that we
are budgeting for 2027 to spend now granted in that 100 there there are still you know that
You know, we're talking about legacy cases still.
They may not be in a global settlement, but it's still legacy cases.
No, I get this.
So, mind you, you have 132 in the budget.
We've overshot that, which is why we've put $100 million on the line of credit,
because we've approved these settlements really with no budgetary authority,
but we approved the settlements, and those settlements have been paid per our direction,
and that number now is approximately 220, 230 on the year?
so yeah if you're talking about 26 we're looking at the um yeah that that 135 plus 120
that's on the line of credit right now so that's 250 which includes watts right
or does it not include watts watts part of watts includes part of watts how much of watts is
included in that 250 i'd have to provide that through the chair i don't have that full amount
All right, so let's say it's $50 million. Let's use round numbers here. So we're $200 million on legal settlements, and we've been kind of running that number on average without the, I'll call them extraordinary cases, the Watts, the Gevers of the world.
It was my understanding that when we looked at the initial deficit of the 882, that $365 million of that was around law settlements.
And that was the quote-unquote new number for law settlements.
$266 million.
$266 million.
Okay, I'm off 100.
Okay. So $266,000 is the, for lack of a better term, the natural annual expense we should expect going forward outside of the extraordinary cases.
I would say it looks like we're sort of at our peak right now, and it will be coming down from there.
But the 266 doesn't include the extraordinary cases of Guevara and Watts, correct?
Correct.
Okay, so then if the number is 266, why are we budgeting 132?
Let me take that back.
The 266 was a number prior to Guevara sort of coming to fruition.
So I can't speak for a law department, and they don't—
I understand that. I understand that.
I imagine some of the Guevara was built into that.
I can't say how much it was.
Okay, but I think the point is that if we are anticipating—
and it kind of goes back to the police overtime question.
And the number was, it was just a number, and then we figured out how to make that work.
But I think the point that Audemars are getting to, I think all of us are getting to,
is that if we're consistently hitting $200 million in legal settlements,
then that number needs to be more reflective of the $200 million, not the $132 million,
which is an increase from last year.
But that's not an actual honest assessment of what our outstanding liability
or what we intend on spending in FY26 or FY27 on legal settlements.
That's what I think the issue and the point is,
that we need to make that number closer to what the reality of that number is going to look like.
And again, I understand we've got these extraordinary issues going on
that we all hope and believe are at their peaks, and we'll come down from that.
But I think the point is that we just got to get that number that we're talking about more in line with the reality that we are we're faced with on an annual basis.
Alderman Scott, I'm sorry, Alderman Lopez.
Lopez. Thank you, Chairman. I just had a quick point of information, and that was we were
previously told by the law department and by Mary Richardson Lowry, who all of us in here
sang her praises, that we were going to have a $400 million budget for settlements out of the
corporate fund. That has apparently changed, correct? And whose decision was that to change
that policy I've never I guess I wasn't a part of that conversation so I can't
speak to that okay I had conversations with her around the cost being around
400 but she doesn't she's just as I don't determine what the how they will
be settled in it you know she doesn't determine how it will be paid for okay
Okay. All right. Alderman Scott, followed by Alderman Conway. I got you.
Good afternoon. Thank you guys for being here today. I have a question for Belsky. How are you?
In the budget last year, we put in $89 million for debt collection, and you went down your numbers really fast.
So from that $89 million from 2006, I'm sorry, 2005, what was the total collecting on that $89 million?
Are you referring to the $89 million we were tasked with collecting from the debt sale?
Correct.
Okay. We were not able to realize that $89 million. We were very intent.
million. We were very intentional and deliberate with the directions from this council to do that.
We formed a multi-department pass force, legal, finance, CFO. We evaluated all of our
outstanding debt and determine what should be offered to sell we had a put out an RFP to get
an intermediary to do that we had a hundred hundred firms look at the RFP 20 of them were
reached out to and we answered questions and then two proposed we selected one intermediary
and at the end of the day they concluded that they did not think there was a market for this
and then we brought in the second one and they came to the same conclusion so but you mentioned
some numbers so how did you determine if this was 89 million that you would i mean it's a number so
how did you determine you said that you collected debt right so what was your what did you collect
the the 89 million no so so not the 89 million when you read off when you read off your
presentation you read off um yeah we so we um I mean we collect debt through um our debt checks
so what's the difference between the debt check and an additional 89 million well so we
We had several initiatives last year to collect debt,
and it was $118 million total.
That included expanding Smart Streets.
It included setting up a payment auto pay program.
payment auto pay program we went to a three strikes you're out on our relief
programs so that you can't default three times you go right to judgment after
that we put 25 PAs on the street that you allowed us to hire that are all
revenue positive and the biggest one was the filling of tax auditors and and all in that was
that that amounts to about 118 million I can get you the breakdown of each when you say 89 million
that what we didn't collect was the sale of the debt and that was covered through the 2026 closing
of the budget gap. Well, I don't, and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think that there was
an itemization of how you collect it or what you collect. It was just an additional $89 million
because we didn't ask, I mean, you have a confused look on your face. Well, it was $118 million.
Well, but the $89 million, it wasn't anything set in stone to say that you had to go after
these certain amount of people. It was just collect additional debt because you did say
that we did have 500 million in debt how much the 500 million number is the increase of collections
in total so we collect you know we don't just collect debt we collect revenues um current
revenues right and so our our current revenue collection year over year is up by 500 million
and that's all the things we collect taxes uh vehicle violations you know not everybody
some people pay right so we get that as current revenue okay so
this so is that debt different from the tax on everyday people
from the tax on everyday people are like for this year it's supposed to be data driven so
which one is that what debt are you collecting i have to keep asking so there's revenue there's
current revenues and then there's debt that that is current revenues that are not paid right and
so we um you know the the type of debt that's not paid would be administrative hearing debt you
know people not keeping their property up it would be red light speed parking you know all the vehicle
type violations it would be water um it would be ambulance fees right so so we as i said within a
three-year period we collect most of that um all the investments we made to collect more of that
is estimated to be $118 million.
And those investments, again, were staffing tax auditors,
making investments in technology like Smart Streets expansion,
payment processing systems, and, as I said, adding PAs.
So all of those things have a number associated with them
that adds up to $118 million.
dollars um okay i'm gonna move away from debt can you explain can anybody explain what is the 31
million for the libraries absolutely thank you for that question so it is uh a corporate subsidy
that will ultimately be uh transferred to the library fund to support the ongoing operations
of the library this is being done so that there are no reductions in service
there are no reductions in force and that there
And that their operations as they exist right now can continue into FY27 without having a property tax increase as we had to enact this time last year.
So this will be for people, employees?
It's, you know, it doesn't necessarily get earmarked for one thing or another.
it comes into the fund as revenue as the rest of the revenue that comes into their fund and then
that revenue then offsets the expenditures that that the library department has in the budget
next year so it's not for one particular um library being built or is this is right it's
it's earmarked for operational costs it's probably the simplest way to put it okay that's it thank
you you want one i'm happy to give you the breakdown of these initiatives for what we're
looking for for 2027 okay so it's smart streets which is the 12 um we're going to eliminate
installation warming warnings on smart streets um our tax auditors we expect 33 million this year
The payment plan realignment, which is the auto pay, three strikes, you're out, $11 million.
We're planning on another vehicle debt amnesty, $6 million.
We're raising commercial vehicle fines from $750 to $250.
And then implementation of our debt check portal, which is going to go live this quarter, would be $6 million.
i'm troller belski if you can provide that through the chair so that we can
share that with everybody that'd be really helpful thank you thank you um next we have alderman mitts
Mitts, followed by Alderman Cardona.
No, I'm sorry.
Were you supposed
to be next, Conway? I apologize.
That's not the number he
pointed to when he left. Okay, Alderman
Conway, please. Go ahead. I'm not going.
I'll be here for the next two weeks. It gets pretty lonely
up here on Socialist Alley. You go ahead.
So I'm happy to have.
Oh, yeah.
You're on the court.
I mean,
the chair leaves and we just
have chaos in here don't open a bad reputation alderman conway you are next thank you very much
so um uh question on the uh the the 350 million dollar borrowing or this is this is for cfo
gabrick good job yeah thank you so looking to borrow 350 million and you said there'll be 190
million of interest over seven years what would be what are we looking at as the interest rate or
and structure of that debt based on that calculation so it would be level debt service
the difference there though would be that because of the timing of our levy right we we set our levy
and it gets collected in arrears so when we issue short duration bonds like this
we capitalized that first two years of interest um because of the cook county levy system
um so those first two years of capitalized interest are about 54 million of the interest
cost and i think i cited the the the the total interest cost which includes the cost of issuance
um you said 190 earlier 190 that's the total that's the total interest cost but i'm trying
to give you the interest percentage um i see so the 190 though does include the 54
the 54 that we'll capitalize over. Okay. Yeah. It does include that. Um, but the total all in
including, which includes our cost of issuance, um, is estimated at 6.923%. Okay. And do, um,
so does the interest just get capitalized for two years and then it gets amortized over the next
five, all of the debt gets amortized over the next or the next set. So the, the way this is
structure again this is this is just a an example run by one of our partner financial institutions
but the way this is set up is that the first two years we would make the interest payments and
those would become from the bond proceeds um and then the remainder of those five years is when we
would pay off the principal right so each of those years would be about a hundred million dollars
in debt service got it okay so it's based on the system i don't say this is blame at all so it'll
be essentially two years interest only and then five years of of level debt service yes and it's
and again that capitalized interest is is not something that we're we're doing because we don't
want to pay right away it's the way the levy system works i'm not i'm not coming at you on
that just asking um and i do actually want to commend you for something you said in your opening
statement is that that while we're settling lawsuit settlements that uh you'll come to us
and talk to us about how we'll we'll pay for them you know we obviously try and make one of the
decisions about is this in the best interest of the taxpayers but you know we we spend this money
without exactly knowing how we're paid for it just kind of is it going to be bigger or worse
in the future so i think that that's a great change uh another question you brought up um
the casino in your opening statement um how has the uh has the work stoppage impacted our revenue
projections on the casino so we actually have no evidence of a work stoppage um i have had a couple
meetings now um with
meetings now um with the global corporation council as well as the corporation council in
chicago um we are we are actually waiting for them to provide us with evidence of ongoing work
i have gone there myself to see um i do not believe that there actually is a work stoppage
um and once they provide us with evidence of continued work um we would grant them an extension
and this is just construction related however i have also they have agreed um to set up all
dramatic tours um and i i i would go with each tour because i would want to see exactly what
you're seeing, but we would be able to tour the floors. We'd be able to see what's happening on
the ground because I want full confidence in this corpus, this body, right? That what I'm seeing is
what you're seeing. And we're all on the same page in terms of their ongoing operations.
I certainly am. I saw that you put panels over the spray paint up high. So I saw that happen
last week. So something's happening there. So appreciate that. I think the next one's probably
for for budget director uh ernst um it looks as though when i look at the tiff waterfall
you know i i see that the rules indicate that everything over two and a half million will be
will be swept unless there's there's projects allocated but looks like two big exceptions to
that are the chicago central park chicago slash central park tiff which has 21 million in it and
never really goes below 9 million it looks 19 million excuse me and it has nothing being swept
from it and then also the gale wood armitage industrial tiff that one located mostly in
alderman tellia pharaoh's ward has 9 million in it it's only projected to increase and it also has
million in it it's only projected to increase and it also has no sweep attached to it a bit of a
follow-up from what alderman beal was asking earlier uh is there a reason why some of the
tiffs don't seem to be following the the rules set out at the beginning of the tiff sweep
yeah thank you for that question uh i will hand it over to matthew schmitz who's over our capital
team to discuss how we land on our surpluses uh thank you matthew schmitz managing deputy budget
director. So that's correct in that that is the formula we use when we're actually calculating
the surplus in each TIF district. When we're looking at the districts, though, we're trying
to kind of hit both the letter and the spirit of the TIF Act in that obviously a TIF is created
as a primarily as an economic development tool. So we try not to surplus from TIFs that have
limited regenerative power in terms of future revenue. And or we also have to look at kind of
the minimum balance in each year so when you look at the 10-year projection report it could be that
there's future year projects that need the balance we have this year to stay in the balance so that
we can carry it over to cover that future cost because there's not enough revenue coming in
so um it just really depends tiff by tiff as we go through um you're right in that the historical
focus has been on um you know downtown areas industrial corridors uh while trying to leave
quote-unquote neighborhood tiffs held harmless so that they can achieve those economic development
purposes but we we go by tiff by tiff and sometimes there's circumstances by which you know that
specific tiff might not have a surplus or a lower amount than the exact formula and it doesn't look
like um you know the one that starts at 20 at 21 million um which was uh chicago central park at
21 million, it never goes below 19. So it's not like there's future projects that seem to be
seem to be taken from the other one doesn't go down at all. So I appreciate this.
So I appreciate the spirit of the TIF Act, but if I was a cynical person, I might notice that those two TIFs are a majority of Alderman Burnett's ward and Alderman Taliaferro's ward.
And both of those two gentlemen were two of the 17 people that voted with the mayor last week to not vote through the debt threshold.
So it does appear that a cynical person might say that the mayor's buddies are getting a better deal than the rest of us.
while the rest of us are subjected to a formula
where everyone else gets the spirit of the TIF Act in penalty.
Question that I would also ask about the head tax, the equitable tax.
When the seed part of it that has the jobs in socially disadvantaged areas,
are those the jobs themselves are in those areas?
or the people occupying the jobs would live in those areas?
I think this is still for you, Budget Director, but I'm happy to.
Yeah, it is the jobs themselves that the individual is working,
I think it's 50% or more within that area.
So the employee has to work in that area.
Correct.
Okay.
And a question for Comptroller Belsky, you know, to,
and I actually commend a lot of people.
The Smart Streets initiative, my ward is almost entirely in the pilot area.
I think it's worked out great.
And this might be something that's a longer-term question.
Is there anything that we can do to make the rollout faster?
Because it's been a great program.
Obviously, it's revenue producing.
I know it requires a lot of equipment.
You said it's a mapping issue.
But is there anything we can do through ordinance or otherwise to make that rollout faster?
um i i appreciate your uh your willingness to help in that regard i mean the
I mean, the best thing you can do is, in this budget,
approve the 46 vehicles, additional vehicles we're going to get.
And, you know, we have several vendors.
So when we expand something like Smart Streets,
you've got to remember that we have vendors that do the ticketing and collection
and then also the technology that goes into each of these zones.
So I'd be reluctant to, I think, the idea of doing this incrementally.
And I think what we learned with the first Smart Streets is that the vendor was not as effective as we thought.
So we have done pilots with three of them.
and you know i i would hate to expand too quickly and find that we might have a similar problem
so i think we're doing going about it deliberately so that we can put this into place uh in a way
that it it doesn't have to be revisited that we could have a steady stream of revenue uh here and
after um certainly i will uh talk to my staff and see if there's anything we could do spending wise
to accelerate um but i appreciate the suggestion yeah and and my last question madam vice chair
is is just i had asked about the packaging tax math before uh and i wanted to give i
it's i apologize sir i don't know your name maybe if you could just give us some guts of that
and please introduce yourself so we don't uh i don't forget the future i i john mafeo deputy
director for obm i appreciate the opportunity yeah um so the initial question that came up
that i was referencing was how we got to the math for the package tax um the initial math starts
with the data that was available in routes from 50 million packages per day across the united states
And then when you adjust for the number of packages, what that means for Chicago, based on population that we have, it gets down to, you know, 230,000 packages per day for Chicago, I believe is the number that you were looking for.
Yeah. And that gets you about 60 million, which gets you about 9 million. Is that right?
Exactly. And I think, you know, to put it into simpler terms, it's around per household per month. You're talking about around six packages here in Chicago.
Yeah, I got four kids at home.
We're doing our part, I'll tell you that.
Tough room, geez.
Well, thank you.
That's great.
Madam, I don't need a round two, but I got four kids at home.
I'll be here as long as I can be.
So if I change my mind, I will let you or the chairman know.
Flag me down.
Thank you all very much for your response there.
Thank you.
Chair Mitts, did you have questions?
Okay, I believe I do.
All right.
Thank you.
My first question is going to be my chief financial officer for the TIF surplus resilience.
So how much of the city's TIF is reoccurring versus a one-time?
That means the city had 100 active TIF districts and proposes $521.9 million in surplus, an estimated $117.8 million to the corporate fund.
And the gap closure counts an additional $42.9 million in TIF.
So if you could break that down for me, I'd appreciate it.
and which districts that expire.
which districts that expire over the next three years in the TIF, what increments do
they currently capture, and what does the administration projects for the neighborhood
for those districts that they now serve.
So if we can get that information through the chair, I'd appreciate it.
I want to get to the seed critic eligibilities.
So, in the book, Revenue Assumption, the overview book says the equitable employer's tax allows
cooperation to earn a credit for each Chicagoan they employ in historically disadvantaged
neighborhoods, maybe socially disadvantaged neighborhoods.
How is that defined, the socially disadvantaged neighborhoods?
Sure. Thank you for that question.
So it is the CETA areas of the city, which are, there's a criteria that is used to determine that,
that I think the Department of Planning and Development carry out.
There's a number of different sort of categorizations that they look at in order to make that determination.
does austin qualify for that cedar area and if you can't answer it somebody can get it to me
through the chair i believe they do like whether it's the entire austin community or not i can't
say but okay how much of that 113.8 million do you projected that will be returned through critics
and how is job placement verified uh so we have built into the budget 12 million dollars
we believe will be, will offset that 113.8 that comes.
will offset that 113.8 that comes in um or that is fully eligible so building 12 million dollars
for that rebate that's not something uh that has to be determined how do you how can you determine
if you have that broke down in terms of that cedar area can we get that information in uh somebody
absolutely yeah you know there's there's sort of a formulaic method that was used to get to that
number and we can get that to you through the chair okay i want to get to my favorite
questions and i do believe you were in this meeting um this is guarding the 500 million plus
flood recovery plan that included 430 million to cdbg awardees and through october how much
has been spent how many homes have been repaired uh i will hand that question over to matthew
schmidt over our grants and capital team uh matthew schmidt's manager deputy budget director
So we can get to the exact expenditures through the chair.
But my understanding is that the housing program is ongoing currently with city bond funds.
So part of the original way we structured the financing was to earmark the federal funds to the longer term infrastructure projects that were going to take longer to get approval for and use local bond money to move quicker on the housing repairs.
So, I mean, we can get you those numbers to the chair.
Also, they could be a great question to bring up for the housing.
I definitely would
but that's not the only one
is correct that money went to
it's not just housing
and part of that money
that money go to family and support service and part of the money going for infrastructure
and uh i believe the budget office should have a breakdown of all of that yeah yeah that's correct
so um my understanding for everything yeah we can we can get you every area a little update
wherever the money was spent at who how much was spent and if i take you back how many
people's applied for flooding during the 3-1-1 system and where was that at
We're happy to get you all that through the chair.
Well, thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
You didn't make that hard for me at all.
I do have a highlighted question here.
Let me move on to finance.
Debt relief distribution.
The Equal Section reported that between 2023 and 2026.
The Finance Debt Relief Program provided $110.4 million in relief with the largest amount reaching low-income communities on the south and west side.
Where city debt is heavily concentrated, how much of that release reached 37 Ward?
We can, through the chair, get you a breakdown by Ward.
Through the chair.
But I can give you some data.
It doesn't much reach the seniors' household.
Well, I can give you some data.
Let me give you data on the utility billing relief program,
and this is the program where we cut people's water bills in half,
water bills, sewer bills, taxes in half.
Once they stay current for a year, we waive all past debt.
We use what LIHEAP uses is 300% of the poverty rate.
So as of 9-3-2026...
As of 9-3-2026, we've had 82,000 households enroll for total enrollments,
and then unique households, 35 to 40.
We've set aside $12.6 million in debt.
We've forgiven $46.7 million.
and about the completion rate is 89.4%.
In terms of demographics,
we have 46.2% African-American.
We have, let me see, let me tell the chart here,
but Hispanic communities, 33.9%, and then it goes down from there.
But there is a concentration in neighborhoods where there's poverty,
despite race or ethnicity.
The program, because it's income-based, is going into wards where there's a need.
okay um a lot of my colleagues have talked about um the summer job programs for young peoples
um and the shy how many agencies that we work with do you know for shy black builders how many
agencies how many agencies that we fund for shy black builders program oh uh that would be
Great question for Family Support Services, how many delegates they contract with.
how many delegates they contract with well that just one one department but
don't shy black builders give our programs other than not well maybe I'm
speaking of the young people's program for summer jobs how many jobs is it that
you give out since the mayor said 30,000 33,000 for 2026 what agencies then can
and you give me a list of agencies at those jobs who are.
Yeah, that's a very long list of agencies.
I do know that, but that's.
We can get DFS.
Maybe I could ask you for the 37 Ward then.
Maybe I could ask you for a minute.
That would be a shorter list.
I got it, I got it, I got it.
I gave you the list for 37 Ward.
And do you know any of the responsibilities of these agencies at all?
do you know what is there any responsibility accountability yeah are they in the schools
do they have some that work out of schools you know it's summer program so i think there's less
involvement with schools for that particular program are the dfc this is uh you know their
after school program certainly is involved in the after school programs and mentoring as well
okay okay so then that's other programs other than dc dfs program that is no those are run
through df all of them are ran through df yes through their youth team okay all right well if
i can get that information i would appreciate it and thank you madam chairman all the woman just
your question about, I think you asked about age too, in the UBR program.
about 48 percent are considered seniors and the balance are non-seniors oh 48 that's good um
okay but thank you i'll come for round two you want round two yes okay you got it
okay next we have uh alderman cardona followed by alderman burnett thank you madam chair um
so what is the source of the 48.6 million in prior prior years available to care fund resource
and how this care budget increased by 213 percent care you're asking about the care program yeah
and how it's funded yes yeah so it will be funded in fy 27 with the through the protecting care
fund that we will be actually budgeting expenses on for the first time.
And it expanded so that the program can expand through really to be seven days a week, expanded
hours, so that there is, you know, there's not a, it's not as though these sort of crises
pop up, you know, on regular working hours.
so we need to expand it to have this sort of coverage throughout the week what is the fund
what is the increase is it the 48.6 no it's a it's a about a seven million dollars i think
six point nine million dollar increase uh from fyi 26 to 27. okay so then what's the increase of 215
the care fund i'm not sure what that figure refers to
and how many
um and the care how many how many vehicles do we have or how many cares team do we have out there
that you're trying to increase so let's see we we're adding ah okay we are we're adding five
additional vans for next year to take it from 11 to 16 and do you know you probably i don't know if
answer but do you know how how much it was utilized in 2020 2026 i don't have the utilization
numbers in front of me but certainly cdbh could speak to you about that okay then um okay
so my next question is um on this pplt uh what's what what why do you think we should increase it
from 15 to 20 percent when everything else even even if we increase it to 20 percent in nationally
we're we're the highest one why do you feel that this is a time to increase it when we last year
we made a we made a promise that we're not going to touch it to 2020 uh 2028 disregarded that and
go straight to 20 for this year what what what made you guys do that uh so it it's really about
the um in looking you know observing the revenue that's come in this year
seeing that it's still coming in strong
coming in strong actually stronger than expected continues to be growth in this area so vision
is that that it can you know that there is room for increased uh and really i think it's also we are
the only body taxing this particular service so whereas other other taxes have
have city and then county on top of that and then state on top of that this does not so
it ends up being a tax rate that compares with other taxes that that Chicagoans are paying
but you know that this is indirectly going to hit the middle class to working the working
families this is not going to really i mean it's going to affect the corporate but down the line
it's going to dwindle down to nickel and diming our residents because for an example uh if i have
to go to home depot and i want to get my my um my carpet clean i have to rent the carpet cleaner
cleaning machine i'm going to be taxed even more just to rent the machine and how many p i mean
all these machines that we utilize that we don't own that we rent um that's the working that's the
working class that's the middle class those are the working families so it's very disingenuous
that you guys put the pplt and saying this is a corporate tax uh on them when it reality is just
the regular folks the citizens of uh of chicago they're going to be taxed with this with it being
being uh coupled into this pplt so what um i see that there's going to be also increases um
in uh loading zones is that is that
in loading zones is that is that correct and other fees again going back to hitting regular
Chicagoans in business small businesses is that correct or is there a fee increase from loading
zones that's correct and then I see that the liquor tax we decreased it last year and then
we're increasing again so again we're we're taxing nickel and diming the
Chicago residents again sports betting got a question for that we're at 10.25
percent we're going to 20 percent do you feel that that's going to discourage
people from actually doing sports betting here in the city of Chicago
recreationing for recreation purposes do you see a decrease because you're increasing i mean
personally i don't bet i'm not a betting guy but if i see this i i would i would not really
try and do it here or is there an algorithm that if even if i go to the suburb is it going to pick
it up even though i live in the city of chicago yeah it's i'm not a better myself but it appears
as though it's based off of where you are at the time you're placing the bet as opposed to maybe
you know obviously doesn't know where you live so yeah well i just i see how these uh these little
small things that it adds up and we're trying to you know be physically responsible here um as a
council but we're you know we keep nickel and diming on our our chicagoans and our small
businesses because i know last year to renew a license a business license the fee went up
extra astronomical and a lot of businesses were like
historical and a lot of businesses were like which i had conversation they were really upset
you know when they used to be i think like a 500 or 600 dollar licensing fee now it's up to a
thousand two hundred five hundred thousand five hundred when businesses are struggling here in
the city of chicago small businesses um i think we need to do a better way of um you know cutting
the um cutting a lot of fat out of this budget and i think we need to do a better job of looking what
with uh what we paid for in e e y um and also looking at other ways of doing things thank you
uh thank you alderman cardona we have a rule 59 for uh chair rosana rodriguez sanchez is there a
motion to allow rule 59 participation thank you any opposed okay you're in thank you um next week
uh we're gonna go with alderman burnett and then uh alderman rodriguez sanchez you'll go next after
him thank you vice chair and thank you all for being here today you know this isn't necessarily
the easiest time to budget so uh i just want to start i know there's a lot of issues with
federal and the way that they fund our grant programming how much of our budget
is grant funded, and are we at risk of losing any over the next couple of years that we have
to worry about, i.e. the Department of Public Health saw a significant reduction over the
last couple of years, and we've been bearing some of that cost on our general fund. Is there
anything that we aren't talking about now where it could be a concern, 27, 28, 29?
Yeah, thank you for that question. So currently, of our overall $17.6 billion budget that we
We've introduced to you 20% about just under four.
about just under $4 billion is grant-funded.
Certainly, as you noted, CDPH has seen decreases,
which is very understandable.
Receiving sort of short-term grants
associated with the pandemic
obviously need to sunset at some point.
But since a lot of those have sunset,
we've sort of remained stable,
comparing 26 to 27,
and that 20 percent is pretty consistent. As far as looking forward, there's certainly been a lot
of talk from the federal government around grants being at risk. We monitor that. We definitely
are not saying, you know, that definitely makes us a bit nervous, but we haven't really seen
much in the way of action yet i don't believe um so we will continue to monitor that um it's not
to say that there aren't there isn't federal action that has impacted the city uh the chicago
as a city um it's not as though the city of chicago is the only uh recipient of federal
funding so you know that we can get impacted as a city in other ways even if city of chicago
grants aren't being impacted i understand it would be helpful to understand where there might
be some risk um and if there is any contingency how do we deal with that um yeah i'm going to
continue with other questions um given i don't have a ton of time here when it comes to i know
we we indicated that we were paying for the settlements with the revolving facility
um is there could you say what the spread is for that revolving facility and what would
be the difference if we were to bond it out instead
instead um so the term on from the wells fargo correct the so wells fargo our um line of credit
with them it's a four-year term and it is 25 basis points per oh 25 points per month or
or what are we i'm gonna defer to brendan on the details here yeah it's um a spread to an
underlying uh index oh sorry this is brendan white deputy chief financial officer um it's based on a
spread to an underlying um uh interest rate index that changes and we can just get you the full
breakdown of that through the chair yeah so it's a live word spread or something like that live
plus 25 bips yeah libor got phased out but now it's the um sofer rate okay um which i forget
what sofer stands for but the same thing understood it would be nice to know what that rate is the
actual rate not just just understand how much we're paying and then what it would be the
illustrative rate if we were to bond it seeing as we're considering doing the same thing for these
upcoming settlements i want to know what the cost difference would be for us pursuing a different
method i think that'll be helpful for the council to know um back on the the grant portion i know
there's concerns particularly about the flood grant and then also the lead pipe grants um are
we time constrained on actually releasing those dollars and do they have an expiration point
where if we don't use them we lose them uh i there there is a time constraint uh matt can you
speak to what that is?
but there it is uh managing deputy budget director matthew schmitz uh yes the time uh period for the
community development block grant disaster recovery fund is six years um it is often the case because
these projects take a long time to implement that um we will receive extensions um not to say that
our planned work isn't uh aligned with the six-year timeline but um just for context we're
still uh we still have the grant we received on this program from the obama administration open
on our books and that was i believe in 2014 so it's uh we have a pretty healthy window to make
sure to fully fully spend these funds understood i think it's also better to account to just do it
quickly um while the funds are in the normal place um so i guess that would be a question
for the department of water management in terms of the execution and how long it's taking in
comparison to what we originally thought versus where we are now uh so actually you know cook
county received a substantial award uh sort of the township of cicero uh of all those local
jurisdictions we're kind of ahead of the game in terms of where we're at uh the unfortunate part
of this is because it is federal money there's a lot of processes we have to follow in terms of
contracting environmental review design specifications that automatically add a few
years to the planning phase that we would be able to move quicker with local funds on
um so uh as as of slated right now i believe water is scheduled to start construction either
27 or 28 for some of these uh big works um but we are we are moving as fast as we can and
especially relative to local jurisdictions um we have a robust plan and we're excited to start
implementing okay it'll be nice through the chair if we can get the information on the timeline the
original versus where we are today how far ahead we are and how long it's going to take
particularly relevant for the west side of Chicago
and then as we talk about allocating dollars
and I think one of my colleagues mentioned TIFS
can you just for the record tell me how much is being swept
from the Kinsey quarter TIFS?
uh can you repeat the the tip you're asking Kinsey corridor if you want you have it yeah go
for it yeah so um on page 637 of the rec book there's a breakdown um per the management ordinance
the past last year of all the surpluses by tip district the Kinsey industrial corridor has a
declared surplus in the 27 budget of 174 million 123 thousand 971 dollars wow 174 million
swept from that TIF in the Kinsey corridor. It doesn't seem like favoritism to me. But as we move
forward, the next concern would be the hiring increases and the slowdowns. When we think about
vacancy versus what's allocated in terms of our positions for this following year, some of these
departments have vacancies that are in the high teens, 20 percentile. Can you tell me what is the
adequate assumption for vacancy that we want to carry when it comes to budgeting because these
aren't small numbers i think it equates roughly 80 million dollars that we're carrying on our
budget for positions that are vacant sure you know certainly when a department's you know pushing 20
percent that's much higher than we'd like to see there's always going to be some level of vacancies
that exist in an apartment as there's you know turnover retirement things like that
um so you know i would want that i would like to see that number probably cut in half okay so a
healthy amount is around 10 yeah i would say that's a healthy amount so for some of these
departments where you see some increases in staff while we have a 20 vacancy can you just walk me
through the justification for having higher staff where we have vacant positions that we aren't
feeling and carrying that amount on a budget where we are in a squeeze for how much we need.
on a budget where we are in a squeeze for how much we need to manage our cost? Sure. So the
positions that we're adding are for specific operations that we're looking to expand. So
just because you have other vacancies sitting in the department doesn't mean that they can be
brought over to carry out that work. We need to add the positions where we're looking to expand
the work itself. So for the positions that have been vacant, is there a reasonable expectation
to fill them over the next year, or are we going to continue to see a budget that brings back
dollars because we aren't filling in roles? So that ultimately becomes the department to
determine their priorities around hiring. So that's sort of a department by department
decision we do have in our budget of course we build in a certain level of turnover expected
so we aren't budgeting the full amount for all of those vacancies that that sit in the budget
because we do know that that some of them will sit into the year so we are we are not budgeting
for the full amount of those vacancies.
Okay.
Lastly, I know we introduced a smart tax last year
and it's pending litigation on a national level.
Do we know what the status,
are we currently as a city being sued for that type of tax
or are we just waiting for another municipality
to go through their course of action?
I believe we are involved.
um there there is active you know there there is a case and we're waiting for the outcome of that
case to proceed and to determine what we can do with those funds if anything and then with the
litigation piece of it if we end up losing where do those funds come out of are we
Are we budgeting for that as well?
So we have, those funds are being put into an exclusive fund.
So those are isolated.
So if, you know, depending on what were to happen,
we would be able to identify those particular funds.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Alderman Burnett.
Did she say who was next?
Okay, Alderman Napolitano
Conway already went
Alderman Napolitano, you're up
Followed by
I think those are all of my
Members in the room
Hey, hey, hey
She was supposed to go next
Oh, okay, that's why I asked, I wasn't here
So, well, alright then
Alderman Rodriguez Sanchez
Followed by Alderman Napolitano
Thank you, Chair
I wanted to ask a couple of questions, but I wanted to give context first because one of the things that worry me the most about the work that we do in council is the evidence that we often don't have in order to make policy and budget is the most important policy that we pass every year.
and I have heard a lot of my colleagues talk about how businesses are going to pack up and leave
if we do these employer tax, and I am thinking, right, there's something that my colleagues say
a lot, that is that we're leaving money on the table, and this would be the mother of leaving
money on the table. When I think about the fact that Chicago is now voting
about the fact that chicago is now voted the best city in the u.s for the 10th consecutive year and
that it is the number one business relocation destination city and that we are the most
climate resilient city in the united states and that we have all of this infrastructure
transportation higher education talent um it's very hard for me to visualize why a corporation
that makes so much money would actually back up and leave because it would cost them more
to relocate than to actually paid a little tax so i'm thinking um do we have any research
or case studies uh that we can refer to to help my colleagues understand this because my
understanding is that for example in seattle the amazon tax was passed and the corporations didn't
leave, the corporate ecosystem that is thriving, we had a corporate head tax and it actually
helped develop businesses. And when it was taken away, there was not a boom. Businesses
didn't rush back and we didn't have a lot of growth because the corporate head tax was
eliminated. So do we have research that helps explain this to my colleagues? Because I mean,
i'm hearing all the reasoning um and how we are thinking about implementing this tax but i think
that the council would benefit from a little bit more research in terms of how this has played out
historically yes thank you alderwoman all of all of the analysis that i've seen all of the papers
written on the the former head tax that that the city had came to the conclusion that there
it was not having an impact on growth for the city i believe that civic fed have
i believe that civic fed have has said something similar i i i would then um really like to have
a little bit more understanding from my colleagues this this question is not for for you but more
i think that there should be a discussion where my colleagues then talk about what is the evidence
that they have that businesses are going to leave because we can all say whatever we want it doesn't
make it true because you come in and say, oh, businesses are going to leave. That's not how
it works. So I would really love to know where this fear is based. And I would love it if we
started passing policy based on facts and evidence and historical data and not on fear and fear
mongering. But anyways, I want to also ask, do we have an understanding of how settlements and
judgments were handled by past administrations um can we get a historical overview of that
absolutely um thank you for the question alderwoman so yeah you know we have a long
history with settlements and judgments and with the the decision of bonding out for settlements
and judgments uh i think in looking back at how settlements and judgments were handled say in the
20 teens um it's a it was not probably handled in the best manner and we've made significant
improvements since then uh the the budget during those years actually in in the budget was closer
to 35, 40 million, fluctuated, but 35, 40 million a year
in our operating budget, and the rest was bonded out.
And the rest was bonded out and bonded out, I think it's fair to say irresponsibly, you
know, bonded out for 30 years in some cases.
So I think the truth is there are bonds, you know, that we could issue for the debt we're
talking about right now that will be repaid before bonds that were issued in 2011 will be
repaid for for settlements and judgments okay so that means that many of my colleagues that have
been in council over several administrations that had this practice um have voted for bonding out
for judgments and settlements consistently that thank you for that clarification um can i ask you
about uh police positions because i heard some of my colleagues also talk about this can you
clarify how many um officers who are now doing administrative clerical work would go to the
streets if um as we civilianize these positions do you have that number so yeah regarding the
The CPD positions that we're looking,
the civilian positions that we're looking to add to the budget,
that will bring, as I stated earlier,
that will bring officers that are behind the desk right now
back onto the street.
You know, I think that's one.
So in working with the police department,
our goal to get them to where they want to be
with their police officer count is sort of threefold.
One, we are allowing, we're leaving sufficient number of...
We're leaving sufficient number of positions available to them next year
to hire at the level that they are requesting, which is 600 positions.
We are providing the civilian positions that will ultimately allow some police officers
working in administrative roles back onto the street.
And then the third step we're taking, which I haven't mentioned yet, is we are bolstering the OPSA's medical team, giving them some additional positions.
We have the number of police officers that are on layup right now is at an all-time high.
And we have over the course of the last year plus, we've worked to identify the issues that are driving that.
and one of the major recommendations were
that they needed additional staff
and stronger leadership within that medical team
to handle the cases in a more expedited manner,
more accountability around,
like if an officer doesn't show up
for a required medical visit
that they don't just get to punt that for the next month so we're looking at
accountability as well and so what that will do will also drive up the number of
police officers that will be available to the police department to put out out
on the street on a daily basis these are you know positions that are budgeted
They're paid for, and we want them.
And we want them out there, effective in the neighborhoods.
So between all of this, there's sort of a three-pronged effort to allow CPD to have the officers that they need,
that their staffing study stated that they need in order to be fully staffed.
Chair, would it be possible to get through you a comparison on police staffing levels and crime stats per year, maybe for the last, I would say, 10 years?
um if you if if we see the the correlation because right now as crime and violence are at the lowest
point since the 60s i think it's also important that we look at policing and at the rest of the
efforts that we are trying to fund that have demonstrated to reduce violence uh in a holistic
way so i i hear everything that you're saying um i am actually glad that we're civilianizing
positions um and then i think that this is complementary right so we should also be looking
at how the efforts that are underway have helped us reduce um reduce crime and violence and then
double down on those um i don't know if my if my request was clear i can also send it via email
chair um if you uh could send that um because you're you're what you're asked i'm not quite
100 sure what your exact ask is as really from an information perspective so if you want to send
that to the committee uh and we will uh we'll respond accordingly okay thank you chair that's
all i have for now all right thank you ottoman napolitano followed by ottoman uh lespada thank
you chairman a couple of questions um this is gonna just kind of to refresh what
This is going to just kind of refresh what the colleague before me just brought up as far as bringing the head tax on and how it's, you know, stated that it shouldn't be hurting the businesses.
Just for mathematical purposes, in the last three or four years in the city of Chicago or even in Cook County, if we broaden the spectrum, businesses have been leaving the city of Chicago.
When we've done our last triennial assessment, a lot of property taxes have gone up drastically,
and a lot of certain neighborhoods have seen drastic changes in their property tax bills.
Isn't that kind of based off of the burden from the commercial industry that has left the city of Chicago
is put on the residential side?
That's how that correlation is done, correct?
I mean, when people say, well, what happened with our property tax in the last three years?
why do they go up so astronomically? It goes back to the commercial aspect of the city of Chicago
missing industry than the burdens put on the residents. Is that factual statement?
The way Cook County determines the property tax bills are based on assessments of property,
but if you see commercial property values go down, then that does increase the rate on
residential property and increases the rate on individual homeowners, yes.
So I think a very disingenuous thing about the head tax is that when you go in and tell a whole bunch of people or ask them to vote or give their determination if it's good to go after big business, on the backside, you should be telling them you go after big business on the front side and then that the business ends up leaving and it hurts you on the backside because your property tax goes back up.
And I think that's why 28-plus of us, for other various reasons, have signed on, a reason that we don't want to see the head tax in this budget.
And that's what I think the very disingenuous part of that's being done is not telling people that the front end looks great because you're going to go get big business and corporations and hurt them, but you're not explaining them on the back end how it's going to fax on a property tax.
So that's one point that I'd like to make clear.
clear but i'd like to ask as far as um we talked a lot about debt collecting um and and on fines
and fees it seems like we covered the aspect of city employees i tried to ask this in our last
budget or our meeting what is the amount of money owed to the city of chicago in debt on fines and
fees and say the last 10 years and i'm going to go on what i've looked up numerous numerous times
it all comes back to that 8.1 billion with the b dollars is that still where we're at as of right
now yeah that that's correct but keep in mind that this the debt that you're talking about goes back
to 2001 absolutely absolutely and i don't mean to cut you off and we can and the next statement
is going to be if you go back to 2001 uh from 2001 to probably 2010 those are fines and fees
that we're not going to collect because of the people that are gone, died,
are not existing anymore.
But let's just say from 2010, or we'll go to 2016 to 2016, 10 years,
and we still know that the debt is $8.1 billion,
but let's just say we make it, we'll get rid of a portion of it
and just say we make it $4.5 billion.
That's still the city of Chicago because we cut it in half.
What are we doing to collect that money?
And have we increased the amount of workforce that's going after it?
Because you can go after the city employees because you can garner their wages.
That's easy.
But what are we doing to go after that $4.5 billion that is owed to the city of Chicago
that can really make these budget conversations a lot easier here?
I mean, if we're not going after them, why are we ticketing and fining people?
Why are we doing any of this?
I mean, you stated that you hired 25 PAs, and PA is?
Parking Enforcement.
Parking Enforcement, okay.
So we're hiring parking enforcement, 24 more, to go.
hiring parking enforcement 24 more to go after and i lowered a number to 4.5 billion dollars worth
of fees that we're not really going after if no one pays or not so we're paying somebody giving
somebody a job to to give more tickets out but did we hire 24 more city employees to go after the
debt where are we with that so um you're absolutely correct when you go back like seven years that
that number is a lot smaller.
And like, so again, the P I'm,
I want to make a distinction between current revenue collection and debt.
And all I want to know from you and all I want to know from you is have we
hired more people to just in the shortest answer possible to go after this
debt. And I, I'm not putting this on you. I'm really not.
No, I appreciate the question. And I, and it's a valid question.
It's an issue. I mean, there's, I hate seeing that number out there,
But I can tell you is that the biggest thing we did is hired and trained 13 tax auditors.
That was that was those positions were vacant for several years.
This year, they've brought in one hundred and sixty one million dollars, 60 million over this time last year.
we we have a um a policy where you can get on payment programs uh either relief programs
or a payment program and people would default on them uh and we put them back on the program
over and over again now it's three strikes you're out what does your out mean though
means you're go you're going to the administrative hearing judgment and we're going to seek
wage garnishment or whatever we can within the power of the law and that's for people that are
not city of chicago employees that so when you speak to employees you're talking about debt
checked i'm just talking john q citizen that doesn't work in the city of chicago that you
not just chicago but people that live outside of chicago absolutely money um you know we have a
we've added uh personnel in the department of law they've taken a very strong position
that they're going to take a data-driven approach where they're going to look for
um how about this probability of payment let's do this can you get me that number through the
cheer of how many people we have on that mission alone. Just let me know. I'd like to know
everybody that's working on behalf of getting that money because $130 million is a great
accomplishment, but on $4.5 billion, our goal should be set a lot higher, or I need to go to
my community and say, stop paying your bills. Everyone, all my colleagues here should go to
their communities and say, stop paying your bills. Because if everyone's not paying for it,
then we're we're we're hiring 24 25 more people to write senseless pieces of paper to i mean so
let me let me just take well i only do this from a proactive proactive standpoint all right when i
got here we took everybody that owns debt collection in my group and the legal group and
we sit down once a month and we track our where where debt is coming in from and we have an
expectation in the budget as to how much we should be bringing in three years to today
we're very effective we still collect debt that's 10 years out from time to time people will pay
yep um well let me let me cut you there just give me that information through the chair if you can
because i'd like to see where we're at on the 4.5 billion because i got a couple more questions i
want to ask but not a lot of time as far as the um the shot spotter program uh and its pilot
program where are we as far as uh what mechanism are we using of funding that the the the shot
part the shot part program what are we using for that yeah the there's funding in the emergency
Yeah, there's funding in the Emergency Communication Fund for that technology next year.
Okay. And that's for the pilot program or to enact the actual program, or how does that work exactly?
That's for, you know, it's for the initial phase.
Okay. The reason why I ask it is when we like to celebrate that our crime is taking a 60-year low,
So 60-year, well, that's an accomplishment.
It's great.
But we still have 1,574 people shot in the city of Chicago just in this year alone.
In the last four years, we have 9,500-something shot.
So it's a tool I think our city thinks that we need, and we can celebrate numbers.
But when numbers come down, the percentages look great.
But when you still have 1,500 people shot or 9,000, it's a lot of people.
So I'd like to see where we are with that,
if we can get a little bit more of a format drawn up of where that is as far as being installed it's
it's pilot program and where we're going from there and uh two more quick questions uh as far
as the 800 peacekeepers where what is that being funded from uh the peacekeepers are uh i think
let me let me make sure they're all i think some of them at least are being funded through the
Is that care fund?
And what's that amount that's being funded for that?
I'm not sure if that program is actually broken out here among some of the other programs.
But I can get you all the information about the Peacekeepers.
Yes.
Can you please, I'd like to know where that money's coming from,
what's the allotted amount that's going to the whole entire program, if possible.
I got one more question, Chairman.
got one more question chairman um uh 48 of my colleagues and i have signed on to a letter that
we are actually going after the debt owed by sister agencies um where are we with that as
of today's date and where is where do we foresee that in the next six months or to the end of this
budget season so as i mentioned before we do these three debt checks per year um at this point we
We have about 8 million outstanding amongst us in the sister agencies, the largest of
which are Board of Ed and the CTA.
In the last two debt cycles, we've resolved 3.5 million of that, and then in the last
debt cycle, 2.5 million.
So we bring it down, but you got to remember that those people, there's thousands of employees
there so they incurred debt so the number is still around eight million but we've been very
effective it was at 23 million as reported by the press seven of those are on payment plans
and a portion of those are on wage garnishment so it's really 13 million and three times a year
we're contacting those agencies finding out who's in debt 30 days to pay it or go on a payment
relief plan or go on a payment plan or go to wage garnishment so it's very active and our goal is
to get that down as low as possible but we are not sitting on our hands i can assure you i believe
you chuckles into cps part hold on look are you finished i just want to i want to finish with one
part of that I can can we also get that information to the chair too and if you can
actually itemize a list of what sister agencies owes the most and by what number so we know exactly
what number um so we know exactly uh what we're dealing with here all right thank you chairman
all right ultimate news uh thank you chair i just uh um mr belsky are those are those formal igas
with those sister agencies do we have formal igas um we we do not the we we do the debt checks
an iga requires mutual consent um so they would have to consent on their side so uh we the the
difference between us and the other agencies is that the city of chicago and the park just you
do pre-employment debt checks so you can't start working there until you satisfy the debt
these other agencies are just subject to the three times a year cycle right but like cps
CPS doesn't do an IGA with you?
No.
So CPS has no IGA with you on their debt?
They do not at this time.
But we give them all of our TIF surplus.
That's correct, but there's not a connection.
I mean, we're going after the employees, not the government itself, for debt.
I recognize that you gave me the grace of a point of information,
but I would think that sister agencies should have a formal IGA with us,
particularly if they get funding from us. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it.
That's what you asked for, right? Yeah. That's what I thought. Okay.
I think we've got that down. I think we're through all of our members,
Alderman C. Chalopia. Any questions? Okay.
After him, we'll be completed with our committee members.
And after that, we're going to go to non-members, starting with Alderman Walgespeck.
Oh, go ahead.
She needs to get to, so...
Who?
Who said...
Oh, I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
That's fine.
All right.
Okay.
Very well.
No words.
You want to go now?
You need to go now?
do you need to go now go ahead go ahead okay thank you thank you to both uh for allowing me to ask my
questions uh thank you chairman my question is regarding the um by my notes the new 30.9 95
million dollar corporate fund subsidy to the um library fund i just want to make i want to
clarify things so is this for new service staffing operating support what this 30 million dollars
entail and is this a one time is this going to be stretched through the next upcoming years
if you can help me understand um again how these 30 million dollars are going to be used
sure thank you for that question alder woman so that new line that you're seeing
is going to be just like the levy revenue
that comes in to the library fund.
It will go into that same pool.
It's not as though it is segregated or earmarked
for a particular activity.
The reason that we have this corporate subsidy
is so that the library, the Department of Libraries
can continue to operate at the level that they do.
Simply the revenue that's coming in
from the traditional sources
is not enough to sustain their current operations.
So this is a subsidy above and beyond that
so that they can operate same hours, same employees,
everything remains the same, same level of security,
all the expenses that they have.
And so to your question around,
is this a one-time shot?
Obviously every budget year is separate.
every budget year is separate.
So there would be, in future years,
there would either need to be,
this would need to,
on whatever the appropriate level,
need to continue,
or there would need to be increased revenues elsewhere,
which mainly is property tax,
or the department would need to reduce their expenses
so that we can have a balanced budget.
but you know that that's a decision that I can't speak to future years how that will be
solved but for this year the goal was to to keep them their operations as strong as they've been
in 2026. So budget director what I'm hearing is that the increase is only for maintaining
existing operations and it will not be for expansion of any other services any other
new libraries that might be coming it's just for what we have now that's correct okay um my other
question is regarding the eet so help me understand like how if if this ever gets anywhere but
how how will we have process of are we gonna go by what the companies say like how are we gonna
to track how many employees are those are we going to just rely on the businesses to say
how many employees do they have which are the ones that come in form those areas who are
socioeconomically disadvantaged or does the department of finance need additional staffing
or resources to identify and register affected employers so walk me through the process i will
i'll let department of finance who will be administering that tax uh respond
defer to brian carlson our deputy for tax administration sure thanks for the question
brian carlson deputy of tax enforcement administration
Tax Enforcement Administration. So we will inform businesses through our normal channels
at the point when the new tax is created. And at the threshold that we currently have,
where it's set at 125 employees, we will have almost all the businesses that would be subject
to it on our radar for probably paying one tax or another at this point so we have channels of
messaging that we will put out there where they can register um to pay the tax because we don't
have a way of definitively knowing the employee counts that businesses have so over time they
will register they will pay the tax quarterly they will file returns annually we will do
investigative research based on payments we see and we don't see what businesses file
and conduct enforcement as we do with the other 35 taxes that we currently administer and enforce.
Will we need additional staff to do that? No, we can work that into the mix of things that we do
currently. And, you know, we won't have a problem administering it, notifying the business community
and doing what we do to ensure compliance is as high as it can be.
But how do we identify those employees?
We're saying that we're going to have this socioeconomically, again, disadvantaged areas,
get a full credit or exempt.
How do we track that?
Sure.
So businesses will pay the tax quarterly.
um and when they make their payments they're basically tracking they're the ones who know
the number of employees they have and where each individual employee is working and then
once a year they will file a tax return and report themselves
Once a year, they will file a tax return and report themselves, the number of employees, number of employees in Chicago.
They'll deduct the number of employees working in the socioeconomically disadvantaged areas.
And ultimately, the tax return that businesses will prepare and file will tell that that will be reconciled with their payments.
And that's how basically all the taxes that we currently administer and enforce work currently.
and my division does compliance reviews and enforcement as needed
based on what we're seeing and research that we do.
Yeah, so that would be my follow-up question.
How do, you know, again, we assure that what they're reporting is true.
So what about if they put in more than they don't have
so they can get, again, the break from being charged that amount?
Like, how do we ensure that they're being truthful to us?
Sure.
the way we ensure that compliance is where it needs to be is by conducting audits investigations
as needed based on what we're seeing companies file and pay on their tax returns okay um those
are my only questions thank you thank you uh Alderman Cruz Alderman Manor Hoppenworth thank
you chairman thank you it's been a long day how you doing i wanted to i wanted to thank everyone
here for your work on this budget in the 48th ward we continue to struggle with making sure that our
neighbors stay housed and make sure that those that are living along the lakefront are getting
the resources that they need. Can you, can you tell us a little bit?
you can you tell us a little bit about the cost of actually housing a person and also can you
tell us how this budget is going to help us accelerate so that we can get our neighbors
housed and get them the resources that they need yeah thank you for that question alderwoman uh i
think that certainly dfss can expound on this significantly um and department of housing as
well because there's really two components there between those two departments um but
the cost to house someone can can vary wild wildly based off of or widely based off of
of their current situation, right?
There are some that simply need rental assistance
to remain in their home.
There are some folks that have truly complex needs
that involve sort of a multi-pronged approach to,
it's not just getting them a rental unit,
it's also providing mental health supports to them,
providing, you know, job training supports, you talk, you know, whatever they need in order to
be housed. So that cost is, there's not one, there's not really one number. It depends on
the situation. And that's why Department of Family and Support Services has so many different
programs within their homelessness division, because they need to meet the individual sort
of where they are so and then certainly housing department of housing plays
another role in in providing affordable housing for Chicagoans that
that are in need there.
So can't really put a number on it, a cost,
but we have, I can say we have this sort of wide array
of programs that meets the person where they are,
whether they're, you know, all the way to the individual
living in a tent that had been there for years.
and, you know, DFS has been very successful
in housing those individuals as well.
Thank you.
Yeah, I remember when we were doing accelerated moving events
and I remember we had 50 tents along the lakefront at that time.
And then I remember in the middle of that,
the federal administration cut off that funding
and we had to scramble to figure out how to help the rest of those that were living along the lake
front um in the 48th ward and along the lake front we've housed already over 200 folks but
the that number is slowing down because it's we have a shortage of housing so i would i would
like to learn more about what our plan is to create the housing that we need for folks to
transition into permanent so permanent housing and they get the support that they need um can you
i want to thank um chuck billows thank you for coming to the 48th ward i appreciate all the work
on smart streets across the city i want to point out that sheridan road is very different from many
other roads in the city of chicago it's right along the lakefront and it doesn't have an alley
And we also don't have bike lanes or dedicated bus lanes.
So it's not just ticketing because they're just going to.
um because they're just going to the trucks are going to be there they're they're going to
violate um how much is that violation actually do you know you know what i will defer to uh
chuck billows our head of parking enforcement hi alderman what violation were you referring to
trucks double parking or trucks blocking crosswalks double parking non-cbd is 100
dollars double parking cbd is 250 yeah 20 20 feet of a crosswalk is 60 currently
what was the last one sorry uh double parking and bike lanes and oh bike lane okay bike lane
is 250 also yeah this is this is not a deterrent you know and the and the idea is not to ticket
them we want to change behavior we're going to have to do it in a lot of different ways on
sheridan road um and i know that it's only a small portion of of the program we we also need
to change the behavior and we also need to figure out how to make the street functional
for all of our users including pedestrians and and cyclists i i appreciate that and certainly
we're happy to you know as we look at the expansion if we have to modify things for
particular parts of the community we will do that thank you thank you and then going back to um
settlements and judgments can you can you give a little bit more history actually
can you can you give us a little bit more vision on how we can do this better how we cannot rely on
how we can not rely on just borrowing
to make sure that people are whole
after such things happen to them.
I have the benefit of previously rating
thousands of entities across,
local government entities across the U.S.
And, you know, there are a number of states
that allow for settlement and judgment bonding authority
like Illinois does.
there are some states that only allow for judgment bonding like texas um best practices
with settlement and judgment are settlements and judgments are budgeting them their operating
expenses and unfortunately that's why we have to issue taxable bonds um because according to the
irs we cannot issue um uh tax-free bonds because of the operating expense nature of it um i i will
say the biggest difference i've seen between entities that really have had a handle on their
s and j costs and those who have not is really the the probabilistic modeling um using an actuary
so we have a pension actuary um i've talked to the acting corporation council about looking into
this idea um because that allows you to see much further into the sort of um future of settlements
and judgments rather than just say that the upcoming year and what we know we're working on
currently um which would then i think give us a greater runway to put it in the budget put some
reserves aside you know whatever whatever is decided and that would help bring down the
the borrowing costs right because we would have other monies that would be therefore um dedicated
um dedicated to them you know um for this year in particular i i think it's it's a little hard
because the runway is short the amount is large we have entered into these settlements which we
cannot undo and we don't want to undo right um and there isn't excess money in the corporate funds
um so i i would say this is definitely a difficult year but i do think that there are a number of
things going forward and i'm happy to meet with you offline and share with you case studies of
what other places have done across the u.s yeah i would i would appreciate that meeting thank you
thank you chair all right thank you all to me manna hopperworth ottoman cito lopez uh where
wags go oh okay got you all right follow bottom and walk us back thank you chairman and uh thank
you very much for um uh for the discussion around this presentation and the mayor's mayor's proposal
um let me um start with just some of the financial questions and um my first question is around
the vacancies so i i see here in the full-time full-time employees for the chicago department
and i know that i i i heard that they are based on the kofa analysis there is about
500 positions that are frozen and there's others that are vacant can you just clarify i think that
Here in the 2026 appropriation, in terms of full-time employees, there's about 13,793 positions.
The 2027 recommendation is 13,807.
It's roughly a 120 million increase.
120 million increase. And there's also, of course, the up-to-date, where I don't see the
reconciliation of that, where the budgeted units have us at 13,686 up to October 21st,
and there's about 1,329 vacancies. Can you help me kind of see what kind of the vacancies,
the positions that are kind of being affected by the freeze,
and then, more or less,
what is the overall Chicago Police Department's budget?
Sure. I want to make sure,
are you referring specifically to the police department?
Yeah, just specifically in the Chicago Police Department.
Thank you.
Okay, yeah, so we have, as you stated,
you know, we did freeze 500 police officer positions
in the 26 budget counted for that
through increasing the turnover number.
They still appear in the budget,
but the cost of those positions is backed out
through the turnover target that's built into their budget.
So moving forward to 2027,
we are of those 500, we are taking 132
and we are essentially exchanging those for civilian positions.
So you'll see PO count drop and then civilian positions
across all the various titles increase by 132
with an effort moving towards civilianization,
getting police officers back on on the street on top of that we will in the
spirit of sort of remaining with that 500 position number we will be continue to
freeze 368 police officer positions in the
and police officer positions in the budget.
Again, counted for through the turnover target number.
And then there will be 11 sergeants
additionally frozen in next year's budget,
also handled through the turnover target.
What is the chronic vacancy rate
in the Chacao Police Department?
Is that a specific number for the chronic vacancy rate?
Are you asking just what their vacancy level is?
currently because there's like a number that constantly keeps coming back so i would refer
to it as a chronic vacancy that is not going to be filled up yeah i think um hard to determine
which ones are what i would consider chronic and which ones are are not um there are
over 500 just police officer positions
that currently sit vacant.
That varies throughout the year
because they do large classes of 60, 80 officers.
That brings that number down.
And then there's attrition.
And there's even particular times of year,
early in the year,
they see a lot more attrition
than they do later in the year.
So beginning of the year,
their numbers tend to drop
and it gets built up over the course of the year.
Um, so over the last few years, I think this is sort of what you're going to, over, over
the last few years, there really hasn't been much movement towards that number, just based
off of the police department's ability to hire into that title, their, their goal for
this year, I think they were shooting for around 580 and next year we're giving them
the ability to hire 600 positions that will just exceed.
will just exceed the levels of attrition
and promotion that they will see.
So should see a slight increase in overall filled head count.
But that's sort of the state that things are in right now
in the ability to hire those positions,
which is why we are focused on civilianization,
focused on the medical team
as ways to return officers
that are currently employed within the department,
return them back to serving out in community.
Thank you.
And one of the reasons was I think that,
and just, I'm not sure if you have it,
I wasn't able to look at it in the lines yet,
but there's a gender-based or a gender-violence office
within Chicago Police Department.
Do you have the number for that office?
I've got some advocates that have some concerns
about the adequacy of the service,
but yet I think that there was a significant increase,
and I want to just make sure that, you know,
we got that specific number.
Because if the adequacy of the service
is not in line with what is needed, you know,
I do think that within reason,
I think we should look into that number.
Yeah, you know, when you look across
the police department in the budget,
it, you see some significant swings. I think this is just one one team when you look at and you see
sort of the headcount change year over year. You really can say that across all their teams.
So the reason for that, I will say up front, there's no change in operations, no change in
staffing across the team, across the police department's teams, what the police department
requested of OBM going into this year's budget development.
is they wanted to do a cleanup of their budget.
They felt like the budget that is in the book every year,
the way the positions are categorized
across their various bureaus
didn't reflect truly how they've been staffed for years.
and so they asked can we do sort of this mass shift so that what the way they are staffed out
in in community and administratively is represented in this budget book so these shifts you're seeing
are just a they're certainly not perfect but a better representation of how they staff so
that team that particular team you ask about we aren't adding positions to their team
um it's just a better reflection of how they're staffed yeah thank you i'd like to maybe as they
clean up their budget you know definitely look at opportunities because like victims of domestic
violence certainly one of the things that they have come up time after time is the need for
shelter for emergency rapid rehousing and i would like to have a better use of that funding that is
for the the first part i think i know i don't have a lot of time so two questions i have right around
water management i know that there's being um a little increase also on the sewage fund about
you know i believe it's a million and a half or something like that i do want to ask i know that
we did have we have had as a recent more issues with sewage and water pipes and infrastructure
that creates serious flooding right i do want to make sure that we do have within the budget
enough money to make sure that we respond to the claims you know when there's damage
and also that infrastructure funding, it is adequate to prevent significant serious.
I think the 38th Ward and my Ward, I think as of recent, have seen some significant issues with that.
So I just want to share,
I mean, it seems like that is what I see
in terms of at least the full-time positions,
but I do want to share that the budget
has enough for these claims
to make sure it's important
that we make these residents whole
and that we prevent such flooding from happening
when the infrastructure,
I think the pipes in my world
were like from 1978,
have not seen any improvements
and that has created some issues of infrastructure.
Yeah, I think there's a comment.
I think we can go that through the chair.
The other one has to do, and this is just because I don't have a lot of time.
I know that mentioned, you know, about the increase of youth positions for about 33,000, about 40,000.
I think there's something that across the board, I see we need more young people to get employment.
I do think there's a favorable thing.
My question around, I think the county has done a program for universal basic income that has come time after time.
I'm really concerned about the increase of poverty and effectiveness, perhaps, of a program of similar characteristics of the county around universal basic income to address poverty.
Any thoughts about that, of the possibility to do something like that?
Yes, thank you for that question.
Actually, the city did run a similar program using COVID funding back four or five years ago.
and it actually ran a couple of years.
So with some of the COVID funding that was received,
we also ran a pilot that did provide essentially,
you know, this sort of payment to individuals
on a monthly basis.
And certainly the results were not surprising.
You know, the level of stability that those families saw
was was an increase compared to you know those that were not selected for the program
So, it is something that we have tried on sort of a smaller scale.
Not surprisingly, it is an expensive program when you're talking about
these sort of payments to hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals.
But yes, we do have information around that program,
which was administered through Family Support Services.
Yeah.
Chairman, just two quick ones before I finish.
What is the budget?
I know that there was an extra budget for streets and sanitation,
for extra trimming and other extra services.
What was the increase, more or less?
It was about $11.5 million for those increases.
Thank you.
And then, just given that my last question, Chairman,
and thank you for bearing with me,
the last one is around debt collection.
You know, I think that we do agree that there are a lot of poor Chicagoans out there
that I cannot get, you know,
more and more fines and fees
of a water debt, ambulance debt,
and so much, so far.
My question around water debt,
and I know the controller,
I think you don't, you know,
trying to advocate for that
to especially relieve
those poor families struggling.
Any suggestions around,
my thing is we should focus on
collecting from speculators
and big entities, you know,
utilities in particular,
that own thing, money to the city.
How can we relieve, you know,
based on that, an equitable way
to relieve poor Chicagoans of this
water, of the debt, I think it was inappropriate
that we
allow
corporations to
foregone their first share, but then we send
debt collectors, and then we don't
balance the budget. Any idea about how we
can do that, or any suggestions,
especially my concern about water debt
in some cases, and how we can address that?
Well, as I
mentioned in my statement, we do have
several debt relief programs for individuals that can't afford that and
And for the city, we're able to collect some, but also put them in a position where it aligns with their ability to pay.
As far as corporations go, we're not blind to who we collect from.
We had just two very large tax judgments in the amount of $30 million plus for companies that were underpaying their taxes.
uh we with this fully staffed tax enforcement division we expect to see more of that um
we said we're raising our uh our ticketing for commercial vehicles that are blocking
uh parking zone you know loading zones to 250 dollars um and we you know my expectation is that
any violator
will go
after them and then if they're not paying
their debt and they have
ability to pay, they're going to hear
from us. And our law department
will go after them and seek a judgment
if they don't pay.
Thank you,
Comptroller. I do encourage you to continue
going in that route for big corporations
and try to get back for
Chicago's welfare and use
that to relieve those who sometimes
find themselves with water debt that, in my
opinion could be you know um questionable um and for ways to provide the relief thank you chairman
all right thank you all i'm c to lopez uh going to the non-members we got all the
wagerspeck followed by all the mahal you have questions you know yeah we got you you're after
alderman wagerspeck thanks chairman um you know we're wrapping up here end of a long day and a
lot of questions have been asked. So I'll just state on the PPLT, to me, this is our local
government imposing a tax that's just going to get passed on to consumers. And I think basing
25% of the corporate fund revenue on this is risky at best.
uh risky at best um if we're going to continue to rely on this for years to come um i i i think
we're doing a disservice to our constituents who have to pay for all these items the extra
five percent on top of the 15 and um doing a remodel your bathroom renting equipment you know
your your other fees that you're going to pay for software just for the small business owner for
somebody who's working out of their home where we continue to push that it just seems um pretty
significant amount to uh rely on in the budget um wanted to ask the cfo when it comes to the
borrowing what is the impact on the stsc for the borrowing that we're doing this year uh are you
asking thank you for the question alderman walt walk us back uh are you asking specifically about
the settlement and judgments borrowing yeah and i think um you know if we're continuing to put
additional debt load on the stsc at what point have we reached capacity with the stsc and um
we also have some reliance there on tiff revenues or tiff surpluses coming in so at what point have
we overloaded the stsc so the earlier um stsc transaction that we completed
my sense of time is very warped at this point in time three-ish weeks ago uh
yeah end of september a month ago um that was a refunding of geos onto the third lean of the stsc
um we we do have uh additional bonds tests for each of the liens and right now we we've
retained capacity for that um what I will say about the
What I will say about the settlement and judgment borrowing and the connection between that and the STSC, as well as all of our credits, is that if there were to be adverse rating action taken against us, that would lead to negative rating action on our third lien STSC, at least with some rating agencies, as well as our water and wastewater credits,
because they're all tied to sort of that GEO bond rating
and that flows through to the lines of credit as well,
meaning that some lines of credit
would not be available to us.
Okay.
And then in terms of this idea of capacity to use it,
I mean, we can't continue, every time we borrow,
we can't continue to say,
well, we're just going to put it on the STSC, right?
we can't correct correct we have to you know we we've set these additional bonds tests to
you know for a few different reasons but you know one is to ensure that we get the ratings that
we're looking for on each of the liens and so that limits what we can actually borrow
on each of those liens and if that caps out where do we go after that so i mean right now we we
still have that outstanding five billion dollars in authority for geo right that's all of the
infrastructure stuff um you know app up until this point we've been using the stsc to refund
the geo credit um i think we did put 10 million dollars of additional new money on the first lien
this year sorry this is Brendan white deputy chief financial officer the only
time we've put new money projects on the STS
new money projects on the STSC credit is in 2023 when we paid for a number of
ESG projects because those were intended to be marketed towards retail customers and
the STSC's higher ratings made it a more appropriate investment for retail customers.
But I think the S&J borrowing that's contemplated here and the ordinance that's been introduced to
cover that would be made on the general obligation credit as opposed to the STSC. So the proposed
settlements and judgments borrowing would have no effect on the STSC coverage or capacity.
You know, Alderman, if I can just add to that. So I think what the CFO is trying to express is
that STSC bonds are self-limiting because of this additional bonds test. And what this says is that
you have to generate a certain amount of cash over and above your debt service you have to
have a coverage over and above your debt service and if if you um the way the lien works is that
you know you have a certain coverage associated with each lien and so the third lien probably
has lower coverage than the first lien.
And as you also know,
bonds are paid off serially.
They're paid off,
principles paid off every year.
So they self-amortize.
So as that happens,
you end up opening up more money available
if you did want to do future STSC bonds.
But the idea of the additional bonds test
is that it kind of forces you to limit
what you can use the STSC for.
Okay, thank you.
uh for different questions so um on the catalyst fund have you provided a breakdown of where that
money is going to be spent in the build fund there's not any real mention of the build fund
other than in the budget overview and it says it's shifting that over to uh this build independently
program yeah we've been provided details on that i think that's the program that's looking to be
stood up. The funding will
remain. The Catalyst Fund is where
the money will sit.
We're transferring that portion.
The portion that will remain, obviously
there's the portion that's coming back
to the city. The portion that remains
will continue to sit in that fund.
This build
is sort of the new program that's
looking to be stood up.
But we don't have any information other than
the one
paragraph in the overview?
Not at this time.
Okay. For the head tax, if we could get through the chair, if it's already been asked, I apologize,
but where specifically all those dollars are going, the complete breakdown would be helpful.
Going to the current unassigned fund balance, how many months of corporate fund operating expenses
are covered right now, how many months could we sustain ourselves with what we have in
the corporate fund, unassigned fund balance?
The unassigned fund balance year-end this past year was $75 million.
So it's not going to support a lot of days of operation.
What we have behind that, of course, are the infrastructure trusts.
are the infrastructure trusts were based on some commitment or regulation from this body.
We can draw interest from there when it hits a certain market value.
But at this point, our unassigned fund balance is narrow.
Less than a month.
I'm sorry, what?
Less than a month.
Less than a month?
Okay.
what's the number that what's the amount of months that it should be two three six i can tell you
that the government finance officers association's best practice for fund balance is uh 16 and two
thirds percent um which is about what is that a month then it's two months two months um
okay two months so we're at less than a month but we should be up at two
and the and i would also just add the nuance that the way rating agencies look at fund balance again
with the caveat that i'm no longer at a rating agency is that they look at the volatility of
an individual's revenues compared to the fund balance and the more volatile the more market
driven your revenues are the more that is expected that you hold in fund balance um to make up for
any shortfall due to any sort of macroeconomic or local event that affects local collections
and for our revenues are they in that category of potentially volatile 80 percent of the city's
revenues are economically sensitive and what what should they be um in general 40 50
there's no should be it's it's whatever your your mix is i think it just it's more tied to
to you know your decision in terms of what you hold in reserve given the fact of that innate
volatility in your budget okay um chairman last question uh just around the parking meter sale
funding the 75 million that's not counted toward the two the one month that we have left here
okay no specifically going to the pension fund as we requested okay thank you very much i appreciate
you guys staying the entire day not that you had a choice but um thank you for answering the
questions thank you chairman all right thank you all i'm welcome back uh alderman hall after which
we will hit the deuce no thank you so much mr uh thank you so much chairman i want to start with
Comptroller, first, thanking you on behalf of Friendly Temple Church of God in Christ on State Street, 78th,
where I've called you many nights about trucks parked along State Street, 18-wheelers.
Could you, for the record, what's the fines that are issued when those trucks have been parked illegally?
I can't recall, but what's those numbers?
I think you just provided those for overnight parking, commercial vehicle.
Yes, Chuck Billows, Department of Finance.
The fine for overnight parking for a truck is currently at $75.
$75.
And what's the, also when putting boots on those, the cabins or what have you?
So for a booted commercial vehicle over 8,000 pounds, the fine is $400.
So it would be $400 plus the ticket.
Gotcha.
So quick question. Is there room to, I know at one point it was $10,000 for trucks, so forth and so on. That's a very big problem. These commercial vehicles that also pulling up on residential blocks. And so again, I commend you.
And so, again, I commend you, not only just in front of the church, but even on blocks I've called you, and you all have moved expeditiously.
Is there room to increase the fine for these commercial vehicles that are showing up on residential blocks as well as areas that they're not supposed to, causing inconveniences for businesses, churches, and even residents?
Certainly. We're just happy to look at that.
As I said, we're raising the fine for blocking loading zones to $250,000.
what we did there is looked at other cities uh pure cities and if um you know if we're not in
line and that would help change behavior we certainly be open to that i my understanding
is that if you're talking about uh fines for trucks and commercial vehicles parked on certain
streets that we are actually in the revenue ordinance we're proposing increasing that from
the 75 to 125 range up to 250 for next year. Yeah, I just wanted to offer, again, thank you,
I do want to offer a suggestion that we, whatever the max that we can propose, because these
vehicles, trucks, and cabins that they're leaving is a very big inconvenience in neighborhoods.
They are not only an inconvenience, they're a magnet for vandalism, and we're seeing instances
in which these trucks are going seven, eight days in neighborhoods, literally, in front of four or
five homes, coupled with a detached cabin. And so I do want to propose a very aggressive
quadruple, whatever, we made custom fines before. So I want to recommend that we go to the max
amongst the max to begin to send a message for these repeat offenders. Because again, as much
as I've called, they just moved to different parts of the ward where it's still illegal
and chasing down trucks, especially since we've hired 25 new agents.
especially since we've hired 25 new agents,
I think this is prime time opportunity to maximize these agents
to go specifically into the west and south side neighborhoods
where these trucks are just having a wang-dang-doodle time
in neighborhoods and in inconveniences.
Hold on, pause my time.
Pause my time.
Hold on, we got you.
We got you.
Let's stop you.
Hold on.
Go ahead, Autumn.
To his point, there used to be where they would get stickers from automatic office for truck parking.
And once they moved that out, now it opened up where we have all these trucks coming in with no supervision other than the police out sometime writing tickets.
But it used to be a more strict control over there just to his point, just to let you know.
Absolutely. And I want to give you a little shout out that the reason that this is in here is because you raised this in a meeting with us a few weeks ago around around the concerns you had with these vehicles.
And because of that, we built this into next year's budget.
Thank you.
Whatever the procedure is, when buses were coming in after a certain hour, there was a five-figure fine, and the message got back, don't come up here after certain hours with buses, with new arrivals.
And so, again, for the fourth time, I think it's imperative that if we can put $10,000 fines on buses, that we look for whatever the supermax is, because, again, it sends their own message to neighbors and important institutions and neighborhoods that trucks can do that.
I want to go spend a little time. We've talked about debt collections, and the memo you sent out today was a very poignant document. And again, thank you. I want to ask a quick question.
When there is what seems to be a non-performance or the performances are off, do you have goals and expectations?
off. Do you have goals and expectations for the agencies that are a part of our debt collection,
in particular tickets and water bills, but when they are not meeting the expectations? So number
one, what expectations are getting? Then number two, when the expectations are not met, what's
the corrective actions from us to those agencies that we are contracting with that are not meeting
metrics are you um are you speaking to uh the law firms that they're referred to yeah so you'll you
will hear from um the department of law david coltan that um but they they meet with us monthly
we we do have an expectation that's budgeted each year and they uh that they have we've added people
in-house there and we've also um added law firms and what they do is they evaluate the law firms
david can speak to this i think on a monthly basis and if law firms are assigned debt and
they're not performing they will move that debt away from a law firm to one of the ones that's
being more effective and they might replace that one completely yeah so there is you know we do use
data and performance metrics. And we do that also internally within our own group, any of our
vendors that we're using to collect that. Thank you for that. Could you send to the chair, I think
I requested this before, but I could be wrong. Could you send to the chair the revenue that has
been generated from the law firms that we have contracted with the supplemental agencies as well
for the last 10 years, so from 2016 to 2026, what agencies, what law firms, what consultants
we're using specifically in the parking meter and water bill collection, so to the chair,
to the chair, those things. Now, let me ask you this question also. Have we explored possibly
implementing second placements? So when agencies have not collected anything from an account after
six to nine or 12 months, you can take that account back and assign it to a second placement
agency. So where are we at with that when these firms or consultants are not performing? Do we
have something in place for a second placement um you're asking about if if we have that assigned to
a collecting collection agency if they're not performing that we can place that with somebody
else no so so a second placement when an agency has not collected anything after six nine to 12
months um taking that account you know taking it back and then reassigning it to someone else do
we do that frequently? Well, that's what they're doing with the law firms. If law firm's not
performing, they will either jettison that law firm altogether, but at a minimum, they will
assign that debt to one of the law firms that is more effective.
Got you. Real quickly, have we seen a lot of reassignment in the lab?
We can certainly get that for you, but I would also say that the Department of Law is going to
be before you, and they will have all that data. We've met with them. They're prepared to present
that. Gotcha. So that's more of the law. Thank you for that. Let me ask you this. I don't know.
I guess this is in your lane, too. Do you have the current agencies that we do have?
What technology are they using to determine, you know, payment possibility from, you know,
the technology? Well, we have several outside vendors, one for water, also one for vehicle
related debt. And, you know.
debt and you know they're again they do use a data-driven approach but they're
doing all the contacting they notice people about relief programs how to
enroll relief programs and you know they're content contacting them through
the mail the you know the technological investments we're making is finding a
way to make it easier for people to pay through auto enrollment we also are taking live something
called the debt check portal where people will be able to go kind of on a one-stop shopping basis
and identify all the debt they have outstanding with the city see it in one place and then
either enroll in the payment plan pay it off in full or go on to a relief program
Gotcha. So I do want to, again, offer a suggestion. And I've heard my colleague, Chairman Villegas, speak about the technology component. I definitely appreciate the interfacing updates, the convenience component. But needless to say, as I move on, and I got a few more, and I know the time is getting ready to lapse, but I did get some extra time.
Needless to say, in your document, you talk about the Department of Finance implementing payment plans and, you know, also reforming them.
What are we doing if there are cycles of default, right, from residents?
Is there anything in place?
I know you mentioned the 1-2-3, but other than the 1-2-3 strike,
is there something that we have in place if we see in 1-2-3 strikeouts
over and over from certain individuals?
So you're asking beyond the three strikes you're out?
Again, I think the law department and we...
The law department, and we concur with what they're doing,
is they're taking a very aggressive approach to say,
if someone has the ability to pay, we're going to take them to court.
And we're going to seek a judgment.
And a judgment can result in wage garnishment.
You know, you have to realize one of the,
we do not have the sort of teeth that existed in the past.
We don't shut off water.
We can't revoke driving privileges.
So the best we can do is really aggressively pursue people that are not paying the city
and in a way where we're identifying the highest ability to pay.
Gotcha.
So last two, have we looked at firms, collection firms, with the technology attached with their
firm to collect payments for things that are six to eight years that we might have missed,
but within still the statute to collect. Have we looked at a collection firm with that type
of technology to really, you know, get the low hanging fruit? Well, as I mentioned at the outset,
we were very effective three years to today. So those collection firms are going after
three years and older.
We do collect some debt that's older.
I would think that the firms we have,
that we're using now,
use that same technology.
If there's someone that specializes in older debt somehow,
we certainly would be willing to talk to them.
But the firms we work with now are,
there's no statute of limitations on that $8 billion.
They're going after it.
It's just, realistically, after 10, 15 years,
the person might not be around,
might not be around that sort of vehicle's not around so it's difficult but um you know we
as i said we established a monthly meeting with all these parties and we we um you know look at
e-performance indicators uh that are industry-wide to see how we're doing with respect to collections
and we're indifferent as to which year.
Gotcha.
So in concluding my 1.5 question,
you don't pick the law firms for the collection.
That's the law department, correct?
Right.
So off the top of your head,
do you know any African-American law firms
that are being used in the collection process?
I do not.
Okay.
But I'm sure they will provide that to you.
Gotcha.
So in my half a question,
and I believe this is not you,
and thank you straight up on behalf of the Sixth Ward,
man, you've really helped us get these trucks off.
How much more are we paying in true-ups for the parking meters, and what is the cost of that?
Thank you, Alderman Hall, for that question.
Sorry, I'm just going through this.
I'm just going to ask, is that in the documentation that I have in front of me?
Am I looking just and not going to find it?
Sorry.
Chip Hastings, Deputy Director of Public Policy.
I believe it's in your documents, but I also believe we've budgeted $16.9 for this year.
Right, right.
And in 2026, it was like $12,000?
Roughly $13 million.
$13 million in 2026.
So again, thank you so much, Chairman.
And I just want to share, again, recommendations as it pertains to...
share, again, recommendations as it pertains to maximizing every dime that we can get for
illegal trucks parking on residential neighborhoods and in corridors. And again,
if we can do 10,000 for buses that were illegally transporting new arrivals, I think we can get to
that number because of the inconvenience. Secondly, I'm looking forward from the chair,
2006 to 2000, 2006, I'm sorry, to 2026 to talk law, performing law firms in the water, in
the parking meter. And then last but not least, again, you all thank you for showing up and giving
us what you have. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. All right. Thank you. Okay. So we have second
rounders here. I have, who, just raise your hand if you want a second round. I know you got one,
two three four five yeah duck your head scott all right cool all right we're gonna start with uh
alderman bill followed by alderman mids thank you mr chairman um jump right into it um well first
is i'm glad to hear my colleague wanting to finally collect some fines and fees off of some people
i just i was just put on 111 figure form that's all you go
that's one of our largest collection firms mintex is a minority-owned firm
all right for dof all right um question um have we thought about filing a lawsuit
on municipalities who owe the city millions of dollars in water and have them bond
and pay us what they owe us and let them bond their payment?
Thank you, Alderman Beal, for that question.
We have filed a number of lawsuits.
filed a number of lawsuits um the most notable one is the one with harvey um and
they were they were ordered to pay us they did not comply we took them back to court
um and the judge put them on a payment plan um and i believe they made a small payment
this fiscal year um again i'm going to provide that information through the chair
I just don't have it in front of me
I left it on my desk upstairs unfortunately
and then I believe
there's one to two other villages
where we have gone after them
the vast majority of the
debt resides with Harvey
because Harvey itself is
is a wholesaler
itself so it's buying from us
to sell out to other
municipalities
from the other municipalities but didn't pay up
exactly so that's why I believe that we should
Yes. And with them, we definitely have, we have a collection plan in place. And, you know, if they don't follow through with what has been ordered by them, we can definitely take them back to court.
Well, we need to do that and, you know, ask the judge to, because if we have to bond to pay our settlements, let them bond to pay their settlements.
Unfortunately, they can't issue bonds because they can't access the capital markets.
annex them okay all right um next on the on the you know i've heard numerous of my colleagues talk
about this levy for the libraries uh well we increased the levy for the libraries last year
in order to make them whole so where's this 30 million number coming from in order to make them
whole that doesn't make sense to me because we increased their levy last year sure uh so
it's a couple of factors obviously the cost for them to do business goes up
every year cost of 2fm to support them goes up every year the other issue
The other issue is, while the levy has remained the same,
the revenue that comes in from the TIF surplus last year
was just like everywhere else, it was an all time high.
So they're seeing a significant decrease in that revenue
that isn't offset anywhere else.
Okay, what's the TIF percentage
that the libraries are getting?
uh is it five i think it's in the realm of five to six percent uh significantly lower than us
uh is that is that five percent i'm sorry it's actually it's actually much lower i don't have
the percentage in front of me but as a as a reference it are the tiff surplus that we have
built into next year's budget we'll see um 117.9 million the city will and the libraries will see
9.4 so less than 10 and we're still giving them 30 million on top of that in this proposal yes
so they're getting 40 million all right um well what i would like to see is what that 40 million
is going to be designated to because what I don't want to see is us give them $40 million
and then they take their $40 million to go and do something else
in order to satisfy a promise or a vote in this body
because that's what I'm hearing is happening.
So somebody's getting something for this $30 million,
so we need to make sure that that doesn't happen.
That's number one.
Number two, well, that's number three.
Right now, the mayor has about 175 officers on his detail for the mayor's office.
How does that compare to other big cities?
I don't have that information.
Okay, can you have someone...
Why don't we ask the superintendent, though, when he gives you...
I would like for them to do a comparison on other big cities.
Just do the top five big cities and do a comparison on, you know,
what the police detail is allocated to each mayor, okay?
And while you're doing that, if you can also make sure,
find out what the $1 million increase in the mayor's office is for,
because his budget went up $1 million last year
and it's going up another million this year.
And so I would like to know what that million is being used for.
Yeah, there's a million dollars going up in the cannabis fund
related to just carryover funding that wasn't spent in previous years.
Okay, so you said...
And then obviously they have increases to salaries
just as every department does.
right so a million dollar increase in just that office alone is that what you're telling me
it's it's the revenue that comes into the fund from cannabis sales
okay just break it down for me okay and lastly um why are we increasing forestry personnel
when we have not filled the forestry personnel from this year uh i i'm not sure where there's
vacancies right now in forestry there are there are always vacancies yeah uh so if we don't add
these positions they don't have the ability to expand so when they when they go out for a hiring
sequence they can hire dozens of of foresters at once okay i get that but there's forestry positions
that have been open all year and they haven't filled so how do you expect to fill even more
vacancies when we didn't fill the ones that we currently have available.
Through posting. I don't think that's a position that they've struggled to fill.
Well, it's been open all year. There's been several in forestry all year.
And so I'm just wondering, you know, why are we adding when we can't fill the ones we got?
So that's all I got, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
All right. Alderman Mintz, Alderman Dow, you have any second round? Any second?
Okay. Followed by Alderman Dow.
I wanted to ask, Controla, thank you.
You've been very helpful when it comes to particularly these water bills that people have that's outrageous.
Are we coming up with a solution or what are we looking to do to better address these bills where houses are left vacant?
people don't even live there
and water is still
they still getting a bill
it just don't make sense
we don't have no meter
inspectors that go out
but if you have a leakage
they send a notice why aren't they
sending notices out
to folks
if they don't move out of the building why do they keep
adding on
well
we have
half of
you know, half, 500,000 accounts, so these are, it's a small portion, but I, I'm looking into.
What would you say, it's a small portion that you're speaking of in the city.
Well, you know, we get, we get a handful of these escalations there. I, I am on this. I can tell you
that what typically happens is there's a meter that can't be read, then we go to estimation
estimation, because we do estimate some homes. We have a process for that. And in that in-term
period, what you find sometimes is bills spike. And that could be due to a leak. If that's
determined, we have a leak relief program where people are credited. If it's not determined,
the code says you must pay if it went through the meter.
all i can tell you is that i i get these escalations uh they come to me personally
i take the time to speak to people and i've thought long and hard and have been working
internally with the group to try to figure out a remedy um nothing's definitive right now
There's no consensus on it, but I'm going to continue to work on it.
I appreciate you saying that and glad that someone,
we do have somebody that will listen because, you know,
just having one in my ward and the senior is both husband and wife,
it gives people a heart attack, strokes.
I mean, they're on a fixed income.
They don't know what to do, and I feel so bad for them.
so i'm glad that i do know that i can call you somebody can look into it to help because uh we
shouldn't be a government body that allow things like this to happen that's not sitting at work so
i appreciate your help uh let me ask why are we not doing anything are we doing anything
in terms of the roofing porch program you know it just is such a bag up and my colleague ottoman
and more talk about it all the time,
but I just wanted to bring it up now
because it's even more of a problem
given we're still dealing with the flood.
The roofing porch may not have nothing to do with it,
but there's still that large amount that-
that large amount that people's need help was it the i'm sorry what was the program it's a roof and
porch program i think it comes up under um which house department the the yeah the the home repair
program yeah home repair sure sure i can talk about that uh a bit uh but certainly yeah housing
M.O.P.D. plays a part in that as well.
And so we do have funding primarily in our entitlement funds is where that sits.
We have for FY27, we have just under $3.3 million set aside.
Is that increased?
Let her finish. I'll come to you.
we all we also have uh funding in the hed bond in addition to what's in our operating budget
um in the amount of
are you aware of how much that is we can get that through the chair
can you please provide it and then are there any inspections
um we're seeing a large increase in fly dumping and overnight fly dumping I have you there and
you should probably see calls because we get them all the time for the ward and what are we looking
to the streets of San just got to keep coming out to be catching them is there a number or how many
that people have been cited for?
Yeah, I don't have those numbers,
but I have heard anecdotally
that they've done some stings, if you will,
and caught some individuals who were consistently dumping,
caught some really repeat offenders.
repeat offenders um look this this is a an ongoing this has been an ongoing issue for
decades you know you can sure way back in the day you dealt with it when you were at streets and
sanitation um and it it is very difficult to enforce because it's happening you know any hour
of the night um what we can do is help clean like rectify it when it happens which is why we're
expanding on the quality of life team doubling that team they do go out and address these sort
of fly dump issues that occur it's not that you know obviously the best action would be to keep
it from happening but given how difficult that is it's the next best thing all right well i just
want to say thank you guys thank you all and ladies for staying with us today and helping us
to get through some of your questions and we have any i know how to reach out for you still thanks
thanks everyone in the box thank you all the more you had a point
all the more all right you had a point yeah i think he hit on it when he talked about i think
the 1.25 billion economic development bar but in talking with what um chairman miss is talking
about you know she's trying to it's important to identify how much of that is going to the um
the the roof and porch um piece that would be used for that and i don't think that's clear
that's all and i know we're working on something on the tiff end but um tiff niff end but um yeah
i think identifying not just saying hey it's part of that money is in there it's really identifying
buying those funds that's going to go, you know, towards roof and porch.
All right.
Through the chair, could you give us that breakout of HED, Alderman Mitchell?
Mitchell. Adding to that request, you noted that the money is coming from different buckets.
Please clarify whether or not the requirements to access those funds are all going to be
the same, or they're going to be different requirements. Chair Del?
Thank you. Just a few more questions. The state of Washington has a tax on corporations
and when they merge or when they sell um have you all looked into that as a way of actually
getting at corporate corporations versus taxing individuals i think that that's something we've
looked into i think we definitely we can look into it and whether it's something that could
happen uh at a local level i mean the way you described is happening at a state level but
something we can certainly look into whether it's possible at the local level all right um another
idea is raising the violation rate on rpp when it's during events have you given that any
consideration i guess the last thing i wanted to raise is that i notice across the departments
We're seeing increases in electricity and natural gas rates, but we're also seeing a
decline in our municipal utility tax.
How do we explain that?
I know we don't pay any taxes, but does that mean you think that there's less usage among
consumers or why are we experiencing a reduction?
Yeah.
Gianni, you want to explain that reduction?
Sure.
Gianni Maffeo, Deputy Director at OBM.
So the municipal utility tax in the reflection there
is really just an adjustment
to what we're seeing in the normalized rates.
Essentially, it's bringing numbers down
to align with where we are seeing them currently
and the budget is doing the same.
It's just coming at it from different directions.
That's it for me.
All right.
Thank you, Chair Dow.
Vice Chair Lee, Audubon Walterspeck, do you have anything?
Okay, Vice Chair Lee, followed by Audubon Moore.
Go ahead.
Thank you, Chair.
Just a couple more.
And I apologize ahead of time if someone else dug into this while I was out of the room.
But regarding the new equitable employer tax, I'm going to call it head tax.
We all know what we're talking about here.
Can you get into a little bit, again, we've asked this question repeatedly about just
where the information is coming from how you modeled it um and how many companies are we
talking about here is that something that can be provided today or through the chair
i know you can't provide because of privacy rules or whatever it is the ig has told us but
you know i i think it would help a lot of us to feel better about the math on this if we understood
how we were modeling to get to you know 113.8 million dollars yeah at a very high level the
modeling included a number of different sort of data sets the first the previous data from back
you know a decade plus ago when it was in place uh census data data from the chicago loop alliance
in the Chicago Chamber of Commerce, Federal Reserve Economic Data, and Bureau of Labor Statistics.
data and Bureau of Labor Statistics data so we've sort of taken all of that
and modeled out ultimately what you know where we think that that will land you
know we can definitely provide you there's a lot of detail in there that
would take some time to walk through but we can provide that to you through the
chair i will also add that i have made a request um to the illinois department of employment
security that actually has that data for the city of chicago um they are going to have to de-anonymize
that in order to provide me that and i've asked for just categories um you know so that you guys
have more data on that as well um i do believe that if this were to pass we would be able to
set up an mou um or an you know an iga with them to get the specifics on these employers as they
they they collect all of this data and that's how they you know assess their own sort of programs
like is the retirement program that's required for um public sector employees no i i appreciate
knowing that you're you're taking that action because it it will be very useful to have that
information um and the tax is going to be collected on a quarterly basis in arrears is that how that's
going to work because i know that there's uh you know the in the definition it defines a full-time
employee as an individual earning at least forty three hundred dollars a quarter um is that what
the mechanics of the tax collection is going to be i don't know if anybody can answer that yes
yes yeah that's the quarterly collected yes and did you in your modeling did you take into
consideration did you model just sort of uh some some drop off with employers cutting people's hours
hours potentially as a result of the the tax uh i don't believe that we factored that in at all no
okay um and then does this does the tax apply to um non-profits
no it doesn't okay i'm gonna i don't have it right in front of me right now but i read in
definition someplace where um it included under the definition of a business a non-profit business
so i just wanted some clarification on that okay okay um and then the last thing i've got for today
and thank you for you're almost done i promise um get to the right document here actually i think
someone already asked this other question.
That's all I've got, Chair.
Thank you.
All right.
I've got Moore.
Lopez, you got a question?
Second?
Okay.
He left.
Okay.
Go ahead, Alderman Moore.
Oh, I'm sorry.
You too, Alderman Scott?
Okay.
Go ahead, Alderman Moore,
followed by Alderman Lopez.
My first round,
I talked about structural dollars.
Help me understand
from the Catalyst Fund piece,
what?
How much did we start out initially with the Catalyst Fund?
Under Kurt Summers, I think it was at $100 million.
I can't remember the exact number. Anybody know?
Where it started, way back when, or where it started this year?
Yeah, I think it was, I got in in 2015, so it had to be around 2017, 2016, something like that.
I think there may have been a few infusions, but that brought us up to $50 million.
So we didn't start out with $100 million?
Chairman, do you know?
I don't have the full history on it.
I don't recall it being a hundred. I remember it being some excess interest that went in after he made some changes as to how we were moving from a longer, a longer hold period on cash. So I think that was, that was underwhelmed. So, but it was never, I don't ever recall it being like a hundred million dollars.
Okay. And so.
So I do have a note here. I think the goal was a hundred million, but I don't believe that was ever reached.
okay so so what was our invest our initial investment in it then
uh the initial investment was i believe it was 57 million
and then we we did stuff during covid with it so what happened is it interest that kept it where
is it at now currently at like 59 is it those were loans so so we've collected back those loans
Okay. So I think I'm trying to understand under Kurt Summers, it was intentionally supposed to
have been for helping leverage private sector dollars, right? We come in with some money,
then private come in. Did we ever do any of that in any of the communities at all? And if not,
why not? You're asking a question that, you know, the intent of the program from a few
administrations ago um you're correct it doesn't seem as though it was really ever truly realized
can't speak to the why why it it hasn't worked out that way um was it was it on the department
of planning development to make it happen i think our treasurer was responsible just
you know investing and you know growing the money but was it on the department of planning
and development or who was it on to make or housing i mean i just i'm just trying to understand
it never attracted any private money that's essentially what happened never no private money
essentially what happened never no private money was only public money it was supposed to be both
public and private money but it never attracted any private money by no fault of our own meaning
we tried or do we know the answer to that that i can't answer but i can tell you no money never
showed up okay all right thank you i guess we're delving to it with um housing or planning
development or whoever's supposed to be the commissioner of planning development sits on
that board. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. That's it.
Okay. All right. Alderman Lopez?
I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Chair down.
Just before I go, I wanted to ask, we used to get
that book that had the
departmental
organizational chart,
the MBE,
WBE
actions of...
Did we get that? We do have it, yes.
It's a
little more character-looking book.
This one.
Okay, I missed that.
By department.
Thank you.
Go ahead.
Two minutes.
That's fine.
I talk fast.
No, I'm just kidding.
Again, good afternoon.
A couple follow-ups.
First off, I want to start with you referenced the Inspector General's office as being an independent office.
Sister agencies are considered independent as well, correct?
Absolutely.
So what would prevent the library system from acting independently and submitting an appropriate levy to match them to be able to fully fund their hours and staffing?
They're not considered a sister agency. They're considered a department.
So the library system is not considered, or they don't have their own?
They have, what really makes them unique is they have their own levy, but they are a department.
levy but they are a department under under this administration the library system has a board of
commissioners too i i can't speak to that well the reason i'm asking is because obviously we're
making a 30 million well the mayor is proposing a 30 million dollar investment uh into libraries to
help cover the costs for one year next year it'll be roughly 35 36 million and by 2028 it'll be
nearly 58 million dollars in gap that it's going to have to come out somewhere. So I guess the
better question to pose and I don't necessarily need an answer but we need a better solution other
than planning for TIF or last minute property tax levy adjustments made in this chamber.
um we talked about the care expansion um and that's something the chair of health and human
services had a hearing on we're talking about extended hours extended service going 24 7
have you had any discussion with regards to the impact of one of its missions which is to provide
medical transport and what that will do if our ambulances are no longer providing the necessary
medical transport, and also the reimbursement funds that come with it?
No, I've not discussed that with them, no.
So from a programmatic perspective, we have no idea what the financial impact of having
an alternative that we are fully funding without getting reimbursed for when it comes to medical
transports?
No?
Okay.
VGT, if we may.
I haven't heard too much conversation about it.
Our budget says $3.4 million in anticipated revenue.
Where did that number come from?
And while you're looking that up, that's on page 33, by the way.
While you're looking that up, last year when we approved video gaming,
we actually anticipated roughly $6.8 million for video gaming.
Was it an arbitrary decision just to cut our number in half for this budget?
Or is there some science behind this allocation?
Yeah, there's definitely science behind it.
so we cut it down by 49 percent based off of the anticipated licenses that will be issued
next year and the corresponding revenue and how many how many anticipated licenses are we expecting
for next year uh 1656 at 276 establishments so we are only anticipating 200 established 206
establishments being interested in video gaming in the city of chicago yes okay um we also discussed
in our budget last year um the check that we just uh the bag tax and liquor tax both which came in
under expectations the bag tax the liquor tax in this year's budget as well as what was budgeted
last year has remained the same even though it was significantly lower is there a reason why that
was not adjusted to match reality or are we just fudging it just to get to a balanced budget so
So, no, what we've done is the revenues come in lower than was built into the FY26 budget.
So while we do anticipate, I think it's about 13.6, maybe 13 million in additional revenue
from liquor tax, most of that just goes to off.
tax most of that just goes to offset the uh the budgeted number that was put in the 26 budget
that we won't realize so i think there's only a less than two million dollar increase because
first we have to make up the ground that we we didn't realize this year switching gears with
regards to something my colleague from the delightful west side brought up um and this
for the Comptroller. When my colleague from the 25th Ward was referring to going after
corporations, Comptroller, you said that we go after violators to collect. You said that you're
on top of addressing one of the biggest concerns that many of us have, which is the errors in our
billing system. This administration has done absolutely nothing to go after and fix this.
We've had committees, we've had orders, we've had legislation, and all we've gotten is the
runaround from you and your team and the water department on things that are not physically
possible that generate water bills that are $90,000, and in my case, in my ward, $260,000.
on a vacant property that doesn't even have a toilet for a decade.
We need a better solution, and we need an answer.
Because I, quite frankly, and I hate to sound ignorant in this moment,
but I don't believe you.
And I don't believe this administration is trying to fix this in the slightest.
You are going to kill our residents because, yes, they are having strokes.
My resident has lost 30 pounds.
An 80-year-old woman has lost 30 pounds because she's still getting a bill
with penalties, which you said were going to stop and haven't.
She's in collection, which you said wasn't going to happen.
you said wasn't going to happen, and she's still getting charged, which you said wasn't going to
happen. We can talk about going after all the people who owe us money, the corporations,
but when we know it's physically not possible because we don't want to have a conversation
about faulty water meters, we have a problem. We know who our scofflaws are, and we also know who
we need to go after, and I think before we continue down that road, we need to fix the
mistakes and create a better vehicle for adjustment to address things that we all agree don't exist
but yet we're still holding people accountable for them thank you chairman thank you uh alderman
bill you had a point followed by alderman mitts had a point as well uh point i just had a point
of clarification um based on the information that i read in the budget you you budgeted three million
uh for vgt licensing and six million in revenue is that accurate so that's nine million that sounds
accurate yes okay i just wanted to all right that's cool thank you i just wanted to ask a
question i put in an ordinance for the seniors want to be exempt 65 and older from that bag tax
and having um uh legislative reference look at it it was uh i think it came up to like maybe
with $5 million or $50,000.
So I'm wondering you ought to look at that
and see if we can ease up this burden on these seniors
who are having to pay this little $0.15 on the bags.
Huh?
You said $0.7?
I think we went up $0.15.
I'm not sure, but when you're on fixed income
and you go to the store and you got some itemized what you want to get that could hurt you right
there that if you change everybody is not as blessed so if we could just look at that for
seniors that are 65 and older.
and older i if that's something that you are willing to do yeah we can look into that okay
i appreciate it because uh you know i just looked at the parking parking meter the the boots and the
parking tickets and and they are down significantly like half half from last year and i noticed that
Last couple weeks or months, they was out writing more tickets than I'd seen all year long.
I'm like, well, okay, I guess it's getting time for budget now.
Everybody getting boots and tickets on their cars to get it up to about half.
But we need to just make sure we're regulating, make it, the law is the law 24-7.
It don't work half of the year and the other half it don't work.
If it worked for us in 25, if it worked for us in 26, and that money that's sitting there, let's help our seniors out.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Anybody else?
Round two questions.
You got anything, Scott?
You have something?
I just have some math questions that I will circle back with right after this is done.
Thank you.
Thank you both.
On packages as well as on the debt financing.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Okay.
Anything else?
All right.
All right.
All minds are clear for the day.
Committee will stand in recess till 9.30 a.m. on tomorrow Tuesday.
That's it.