'Everything is on the table' to eliminate $982.4 million budget shortfall, top mayoral aide says

Mayor Brandon Johnson has four months to erase a $223 million shortfall for the current year and just over a month before laying out his plan to fill a gap nearly five times that size in 2025.

No wonder everything is on the table — from layoffs and pay cuts on the cost-cutting side to a property tax increase, video gaming and volume-based garbage collection fees on the revenue end.

“We’re talking about everything. … Every option is on the table…We’re looking at every single one of those,” Budget Director Annette Guzman told the Sun-Times on Thursday.

“We’re asking everyone for their ideas of how the city can continue to provide services that we’re required to provide and also make investments to help our communities recover and help those who’ve been chronically disinvested in, while also ensuring that our revenues can support that.”

Guzman said the mayor met last week with the city’s labor leaders to solicit their ideas on how to solve the crisis.

“No asks were put on the table at that time, but the mayor was very clear that this is a shared responsibility,” she said.

Why not share the pain by asking every one of the city’s 36,420 employees to take a couple of unpaid furlough days, as former Mayor Richard M. Daley did during a budget crisis?

“Again, every option is on the table,” Guzman said, quickly adding: “Furlough days will not get us through a $900 million-[plus] budget gap. So there has to be a series of steps that we’re taking to solve the budget gap that’s in front of us.”

Hiring freeze needed, says Civic Federation president

Civic Federation President Joe Ferguson said an “extended hiring freeze,” a multi-year furlough plan and controls to runaway overtime and the “endless bleed-out” legal judgments will all be needed to chip away at the city’s massive shortfall.

Ferguson said he trusts Guzman when she says “everything is on the table.” The question is, “Who is setting that table and how is the dinner conversation being managed?”

“The Water Department operates under 17 different collective bargaining agreements. … It routinely involves staffing modest-sized street projects with a whole array of people who have to take turns doing their job with everybody else sort of standing around a hole or standing by waiting for their turn. There have got to be ways to do this better,” Ferguson said.

“This isn’t just putting out a call for Hail Mary suggestions. This is actually getting people to sit at the table" to hammer out questions of cost effectiveness and efficiency "in a way that allows us to cut down this deficit and, over the long run, provide savings."

Ferguson also said the city should tell unions: "'We will give you a stake in those savings by making sure that, for every $2 [saved], we devote one of those dollars to shoring up your pensions.'"

Ferguson said it is equally imperative that Johnson confront the “sacred cows” of city government.

“The easy one to go to is the manning requirements on fire trucks in a world in which the vast majority of calls to the Fire Department are for emergency medical services that can be handled by ambulances and EMTs — if only we actually staffed the department to align with what the demands are,” Ferguson said.

He was referring to the mandate requiring five CFD employees on every piece of fire apparatus, though there are some exceptions.

The union "will say, 'Can’t do that. People are gonna die.' But come to the table and let’s have the conversation and be able to demonstrate to the public that these conversations are being had.”

Firefighters still waiting for contract

But Pat Cleary, president of Chicago Fire Fighters Union Local 2, said Ferguson isn't a firefighter and doesn't know firefighting tactics.

Whenever a firefighter dies in the line of duty, Cleary said, a federal agency's report will state “we should have full manning — not less manning.” That means there should be no “manning variances” that allow fire trucks and engines to be “running short” of the mandatory requirement for five employees on every piece of fire apparatus, Cleary added.

“The National Fire Protection Association standard states that high-hazardous cities such as Chicago should run with five to six firefighters per engine and truck. We’re running four-to-five,” Cleary said.

“I’m asking only for five. I’m not being greedy. I want the bare minimum.”

His members have waited more than three years for a new contract. When it’s settled, that will require the city to shell out three years’ worth of retroactive pay raises even before addressing their demand for 20 more ambulances and the paramedics needed to staff them.

Anders Lindall, a spokesman for AFSCME Council 31, said last week’s meeting with the mayor started with a general outline of the shortfall and ended with Johnson “soliciting ideas about efficiencies or savings from folks on the front lines who do the work” about “ways to do things better, cheaper.”

“We also made clear that we don’t want to see any cuts to the services our members provide,” Lindall said.

“We already know there’s a hiring freeze for the current year in order to meet this year’s budget number. And we’re gonna be also looking, for our own part, for ideas on the revenue side as well.”

CPS must share budget pains

The all options on the table statement also applies to compelling Chicago Public Schools to absorb a $175 million pension payment for non-teaching school employees.

Guzman argued that a pension reversal is particularly important for CPS to assume its own costs as Chicago makes the transition from an appointed school board to a partially-elected, then fully-elected 21-member board.

“Very soon, CPS will be its own … independent governing body separate and apart from the city. … For us to not control CPS or the Board of Education while having dollars that … are collected on behalf of the city go to another source is untenable,” Guzman said.
“We are looking at every single option that allows us to … ensure that CPS fully takes on their obligations as we continue to disentangle our financial and operations commitments.”