On Tuesday, Cook County commissioners voted by a wide margin, 15-1, to repeal the penny-per-ounce tax on sweetened beverages. The tax has been in effect little over two months, and will sunset at the end of the fiscal year on Nov. 30, 2017. The measure now faces a vote at the full board of commissioners, and starts the clock for county officials to find a way to fill a $200 million projected gap in the 2018 budget.

Twelve Cook County commissioners are poised to strike down the county’s short-lived sweetened beverage tax in Finance Committee on Tuesday (SO 17-4704).

Finance Committee will consider, and may finally vote on, proposed pharmacy work rules and several direct introductions from Chair Ed Burke (14). He also wants large gathering places in Chicago to adhere to stricter signage rules following the death of a teenager in a Rosemont hotel walk-in freezer.

Three City Council committees are scheduled to meet Tuesday, two of which, Housing and Finance, concern unfinished business ahead of Wednesday’s meeting of the full City Council. The Housing Committee will consider a change to the affordable housing pilot program approved two weeks ago, along with an acquisition of the former Kennedy-King City College campus in Englewood.

As Chicago pushes hard for Amazon’s new headquarters, a local law on the books concerning drones may impact the city’s bid, particularly since Amazon has an interest in the technology.

In November of 2015, the City Council approved regulations for where hobbyists could fly drones, setting prohibitions over homes, airport airspace, and public gathering places such as schools and hospitals.Chicago was one of the first cities in the country to impose such rules.

The anti-tax armies are ready for battle, and it looks like Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s Sweetened Beverage Tax will be repealed next week. Friday morning, Republican County Commissioner Sean Morrison announced a bipartisan deal among 12 commissioners to sunset the existing tax on Dec. 31 so it doesn’t affect the 2017 budget, but kills it for the 2018 budget.

Twelve commissioners backing the deal removes Preckwinkle’s ability to veto it, meaning when budget hearings begin on Oct. 23, commissioners will have to look for ways to either cut $200 million of county services or raise a commensurate amount to fill the gap. The hearings won’t be pleasant, to be sure.

As Chicago and Cook County have been hit with a growing wave of new taxes, the soda tax seemed to be the one where residents began to really complain.

But after decades of relatively low taxes–yes, you heard me right–Chicago and Cook County citizens are discovering somebody has to pay for all the stuff we’ve got here.

For decades, Chicago and Cook County have been dodging the taxman, as former Mayor Richard M. Daley and former Cook County President Todd Stroger did everything they could to avoid property tax increases. To this effect, Daley, Stroger, and now Mayor Rahm Emanuel have layered on a blizzard of little taxes. Like a garbage tax, red light cameras, water tax, bag tax and a 911 tax.

A 2014 study of property taxes around Illinois by the state’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability found that Cook County property owners had on average considerably lower property tax rates than the rest of the state.

While most of Illinois was paying a property tax rate just over 8%, Cook County residents were paying something closer to 7%.

While this might be news to most Cook County residents, downstaters are acutely aware of it. During last summer’s debate over education funding, witnesses regularly testified how they were paying sky high property taxes to keep their schools open. One downstate school superintendent testified he paid $8,000 a year on a $300,000 house..

That means if Cook County residents, and Chicagoans in particular, have a gripe about their taxes, the rest of the state will not give a hoot.

While Cook County will likely need to fill a $200 million hole for next year, Chicago’s got a much bigger bill coming due: Chicago Public Schools probably (they aren’t telling) have millions of dollars of debt payments. Police reform will also cost tens of millions. And then there’s the big daddy: steadily increasing pension payments with a big jump scheduled for 2019.

That’s just local. The state has some big bills to pay too. starting with a $16 billion backlog. That’s not to mention the suffering higher and local education systems that  are still radically underfunded compared to most states, despite last summer’s big education reform.

And government is smaller than ever. After the cuts of the early 2000s, Illinois’ state government is smaller than it’s been in decades. Emanuel has cut thousands of city positions since he took office in 2011. So has President Preckwinkle. Waste, fraud and abuse, while ever present, aren’t our problem. It’s that we have to pay for what we use.

On Wednesday, Oct. 18, Emanuel will introduce his budget, which reportedly has a $259 million gap. You can be sure he’s been watching the beverage tax debate closely for tips.

Seeking to set the terms of negotiation before next week’s vote to repeal the county’s beverage tax, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle introduced a proposed $5.36 billion budget for fiscal year 2018. The keystone of the budget, an estimated $200 million in revenue from the sweetened beverage tax that took effect only a month ago, seemed likely to be repealed in vote scheduled for next week as the Board’s Finance Committee Chair, and Preckwinkle’s most stalwart ally, Comm. John Daley (D-11), announced plans Thursday afternoon to support the repeal of the tax.

The Chicago Board of Ethics has a new member–David Daskal, a former member of Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration and, more recently, the tech industry. His appointment advanced out of the Council’s Rules Committee in a matter of minutes without any questions.

Confusion over the Emanuel administration’s plan to create a separate agency to borrow on the city’s behalf forced the Council’s Finance Committee to recess the meeting to Friday morning, after having only approved three of the 16 items on the agenda.

Though several attempts were made to table the ordinance to create a new corporate authority, it eventually passed by voice vote two hours into the meeting. Ald. Scott Waguespack (32) and Ald. John Arena (45) were the sole no votes.

City Council’s Budget Committee meets this morning for only one routine agenda item, the acceptance of a grant for emergency heating repairs. The Rules Committee meeting shortly after is similarly routine, aside from one new appointment to the city’s Board of Ethics.  

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is set to release her fiscal year 2018 budget Thursday during an 11:00 a.m. address. The release comes less than a week before commissioners are expected to vote on a repeal of the sweetened beverage tax, whose revenues Preckwinkle counted on to balance this and the following year’s budget.

The City Council’s Finance Committee is scheduled to vote on an ordinance establishing a separate corporation to issue debt on behalf of the city at lower interest rates, as well as authorization for the first round of borrowing: $3 billion in bonds backed by sales tax revenue.

The ordinance creates an entity insulated from the city to borrow on its behalf. The obligation and the associated fees of paying off the borrowing are not secured by the City’s full faith and credit, as has been the case with past debt issuances.

On Wednesday, the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation awarded a $1.85 million grant to criminal justice stakeholders in Cook County to reduce the jail population, divert certain nonviolent offenders away from the criminal justice system, and track efforts to remind defendants about their dates in court.

The local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit in federal court Wednesday to demand court intervention in the Chicago Police Department’s ongoing efforts to overhaul its use of force policies and training.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has selected Cook County Circuit Court Judge Patricia Banks to serve as the new chief administrator for the city agency in charge of handling cases of police misconduct. On Monday, Civilian Office of Police Accountability Administrator Sharon Fairley officially formed a campaign committee for Illinois Attorney General, leaving a leadership vacuum at the agency less than a month after its official launch.

 



Just weeks before Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson is set to make his 2017 budget request to aldermen, Inspector General Joe Ferguson released an audit blasting the department’s overtime practices.