President
Preckwinkle was successful in getting the votes to approve all Amendments to the
Executive Budget she supported during the Finance Committee meeting and then in
winning approval of both the new revenues and overall spending plan for the $4.5
billion budget at the Board Meeting. One of the interesting aspects of the
November 13 Finance Committee meeting, which dealt with the additional revenue
sources for the 2016 budget, and the November 18 meeting of the Finance
Committee to deal with proposed Amendments to the Budget, was that there were
different Commissioners voting for and against the differing
proposals.
The same held true during the Board meeting in which
the related budget proposals were passed. In past
years, it was common to see the same Commissioners voting together.
Voting
yes to approve the entire budget, as amended, were
Commissioners Arroyo, Boykin, Butler, Daley, Gainer, Garcia, Moore, Murphy,
Silvestri, Sims, Steele, and Tobolski. Voting no were Commissioners Fritchey, Goslin,
Morrison, Schneider, and Suffredin. Commissioners Fritchey, Schneider, and
Suffredin stated that their opposition was largely based on the tax increases
used to support the spending plan, especially the sales tax and hotel
tax.
In addition, the
following Commissioners voted in opposition to one or more of the other
Administration-supported budget-related proposals: Gainer, Murphy, Silvestri,
and Tobolski. Also, Commissioners Boykin, Daley,
Fritchey, Goslin, Schneider, and Sims voted against (with Commissioner Suffredin
voting present) the two proposals to increase Clerk of the Court
fees.
Amendments Delay COLA Increase for
Non-Union Employees and Increase Money for Chief Judge’s Mortgage Foreclosure
Mediation Program
The Finance
Committee considered 24 proposed amendments to the budget, approving 12 and
voting down 4, with 8 withdrawn by sponsors after discussions. Most of
the Amendments approved were non-controversial corrections. All
Commissioners also supported the partial restoration of money for the Chief
Judge’s Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation Program to bring the program up to 60% of
the 2015 budget, utilizing additional monies from the Adult Probation Service
Fee and the Social Service/Probation and Court Service Fees.
However, there was
much discussion about the proposal to delay until June 1, 2016, the previously
approved cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) of 2% for non-union County employees
that had been scheduled to be effective on December 1, 2015. The
Chief of Staff for the State’s Attorney’s Office talked
about the disparate impact this delay would have on that office that has one of
the largest number of non-union employees: the
office is 3% of the budget, but its employees will bear 22% of the total cost
savings through the delay in salary increase. Another
complaint was that this Amendment, like all the others, was posted on the
County’s web site less than 24 hours prior to the scheduled start of the
meeting.
Nevertheless, the Amendment passed by a vote of 14-3,
with Commissioners Fritchey, Murphy, and Suffredin voting no.
Commissioner
Fritchey ended up withdrawing 3 proposed amendments which offered an across the
board cut of 1% in lieu of the hotel tax and ticket re-sellers’ tax, knowing
that the votes weren’t there to pass them. Also
withdrawn was a proposal to add $500,000 for restorative justice for grants from
the Justice Advisory Council. The head of that Council spoke against
the proposal saying that it preferred to first see whether the existing grants
were producing positive results before giving out more money.
One Amendment that
failed to pass was sponsored by Commissioners Arroyo and Suffredin which would
have eliminated 9 positions from the Clerk of the Court’s Inspector
General department in favor of adding 11 Asst. State’s Attorney
positions.
Comm. Arroyo stated that based on what the Clerk of
the Court had said the duties of the Inspector General’s department in her
office were (to investigate complaints of fraud and abuse in that office), the
Commissioner believes these positions are redundant to the duties of the State’s
Attorney.
Another Commissioner wondered why the Clerk of the
Court didn’t just use the County’s Inspector General. However, the Clerk of the Court’s Chief of Staff said that its employees
in the Inspector General’s department also had to transfer evidence, such as
bags of heroin, to and from court, and transfer large sums of money around,
which you wouldn’t want the average employee in the Clerk’s office to
do.
Commissioners Daley, Fritchey, Gainer, Garcia, and
Tobolski joined with Commissioners Arroyo and Suffredin, but the Amendment
failed with 10 Commissioners voting against.
Also failing was an
Amendment sponsored by Commissioner Steele to add 3 investigative positions to
the Public Defender’s office by increasing the turnover adjustment for that
department.
Commissioners Arroyo, Fritchey, Moore, Murphy, and
Suffredin joined Steele in supporting, but 10 other Commissioners voted
no.
The Finance
Committee and Board meetings to deal with the budget began at 2 pm, after all
the regularly scheduled committee and Board meetings that day. These
budget meetings ended at about 6:20 pm.
-- Submitted by
Priscilla Mims, League Observer
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