Wednesday’s Cook County Board meeting was anticlimactic, as commissioners affirmed by a simple voice vote the repeal of the sweetened beverage tax.

Following months of subject matter hearings and re-writes, the City Council’s Finance Committee quickly approved an ordinance from Finance Chair Ed Burke (14) that would restrict the number of prescriptions pharmacists can fill. The initiative, born out of a Chicago Tribune investigation, attempts to give pharmacists more time to warn patients of potential deadly drug interactions and reduce the number of inaccurately filled prescriptions.

The Council’s Housing Committee approved a major land sale and transfer that brings the city one step closer to relocating the Department of Fleet and Facilities Management (2FM) headquarters from North Branch to Englewood.

The full City Council convenes today with some big-ticket items up for vote, starting with the $100 million-plus sale of the city’s main vehicle and maintenance warehouse located on 18 acres of riverfront property in the North Branch corridor.

The Cook County Board meets at 9:00 a.m. to take up regular business delayed by the all-day consideration of a beverage tax repeal on Tuesday. The final vote on the repeal, which passed the Finance Committee 15-1, takes place in the full Board meeting. Commissioners will also consider Ammar Rizki’s appointment to take over as Chief Financial Officer, William Barnes Jr’s appointment to head the troubled Department of Homeland Security, and a $5 million medical malpractice settlement.

 



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.