We likely won’t see the 75% cut that organizers have asked for, but there are some proposals on the table.

This story was originally published by City Bureau on 11.20.2020

By Grace Del Vecchio, City Bureau

Since this summer, the Defund CPD campaign has held mass trainings, canvassing and phone banking to explain police abolition to Chicagoans. Their official demand: to cut the $1. 8 billion police budget by 75% and reinvest that money in community-led programs, from anti-violence work to social services.

Yet Mayor Lori Lightfoot has made her opposition to the movement clear. “On my watch, we will never make cuts or policy changes that inhibit the core mission of the police department, which is to serve and protect us all,” said Lightfoot, despite proposing a relatively minor cut to next year’s police budget.

Budget experts agree: the political will is simply not there for massive cuts to the police budget at this time, especially as enthusiasm from summer Black Lives Matter protests has faded and gun violence rates rise. Even progressive City Council members have stayed away from proposing across-the-board cuts—but a few concrete proposals have emerged to chip away at the 37% of the city’s corporate fund that went to CPD this year.

In the meantime, Defund CPD organizers are working to persuade people to support police abolition as a way to improve public safety, invest in communities in need and dismantle a criminal justice system they say is inherently racist.

That means “bringing folks into a conversation that may challenge some of the things they already believe, and inviting folks into seeing the world differently, and seeing that more is possible,” said Asha Ransby-Sporn, a community organizer with the Defund CPD campaign and the Black Abolitionist Network. “We want to put pressure on [Lightfoot]. And we want to do that through massive popular support for our demands, to the point where we create an environment where it's politically impossible... to ignore.”

Whether they’ll reach the tipping point in popular support remains to be seen. But as City Council prepares to vote on Chicago’s budget for 2021, a few proposals on the table could actually put a dent in the police budget. Here’s a look at what’s at stake.

NOT HIRING NEW OFFICERS

As City Bureau and Injustice Watch previously reported, Lightfoot’s initial budget proposal included an $80 million decrease in tax funds to the Chicago Police Department, $34 million of which will come from not filling vacant positions. This process of not filling positions is called attrition and Chicago isn’t the first city to utilize it to meet budget gaps. Cities such as Los Angeles, New York and Austin have also cut the number of sworn officers through not filling vacancies and, for some, temporarily ceasing new cadet classes.

Northwestern University criminologist and policing expert Wesley Skogan said that while attrition is a viable strategy to cut police budgets, its long-term impact depends on how long a city is willing to sustain it in the future.

“Let's pretend that it's about 500 officers a year and the average cost of a Chicago police officer is about $150,000 a year. So if you would reduce the size of the force by just one year, you're saving [$75 million]. And of course, you can save the next year if you don't do any catch up,” said Skogan.

Currently, 89% of CPD’s budget is devoted to personnel. The strategy can be used as a way to quietly defund the police while saving political face without political risk with significant savings, according to Skogan.

THE PEACE BOOK

Proposed by GoodKids MadCity youth organizers in this July, the Peace Book would reallocate 2% (about $35 million) of the current police budget into community-led violence prevention programs such as employment opportunities, counseling and mediation, violence interruption, education and youth engagement.

The idea is supported by Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th) who, starting in December, will begin talks with violence prevention groups and youth organizers to collaboratively write the ordinance.

“The city claims that it does this type of work but … without having young people at the table,” Taylor said. She added that either she or Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez (33rd) will introduce the ordinance to City Council in 2021.

GKMC hopes to create and fund a “Peace Book Commission,” a coalition of community groups that would train and pay peacekeepers to facilitate peace treaties between gangs and street factions, provide wrap-around services for violence-affected youth, create art and murals of Chicagoans whose lives have been lost to gun violence as well as provide real-time updates of gun violence occurring in the city.

They say that paying community members a livable wage to become trained peacekeepers addresses not only violence within communities but the root cause of it—poverty.

“We want to stop people from going out [and] retaliating against their enemies, and figure out ways that we can transform them and not throw them in jail and have them go away. Because that don't do nothing but create a circle of retaliatory violence,” said GKMC organizer Miracle Boyd.

To GKMC organizers, investing in and being present within communities is the biggest tool in violence prevention. On Halloween, the group held a block party on 53rd Street in Hyde Park to demonstrate the power of community-led peacekeeping.

“If you stand on blocks all day, and you have people do that, there will be no gun violence,” said GKMC organizer Jalen Kobayashi.

TREATMENT NOT TRAUMA ORDINANCE

Nationally at least one in four people killed by police has mental illness. Introduced by Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez in September, the Treatment Not Trauma proposed ordinance seeks to provide 24/7 mental health response to emergency calls by reallocating funds away from CPD and into public mental health services.

The proposal would reallocate an estimated $150 million (pending a full city assessment) from the CPD budget to reopen and expand mental health clinics throughout the city. The trained mental health responders would be housed in the clinics.

“We think that we should definitely be thinking about public safety in a holistic way that is public health-oriented. Cops are not public health, cops are not equipped to deal with any of the issues that we're trying to address with this model,” said Rodriguez Sanchez.

The order was inspired by programs in Eugene and Springfield, Oregon, where responders handle roughly 20% of all 911 calls made to those police departments.

A similar (but slimmed down) proposal by Lightfoot would allocate $16.5 million from the police budget to community-based violence reduction efforts including $1.3 million for a co-responder model where police and mental health professionals would respond to mental health crises.

It’s been criticized by Rodriguez Sanchez for not going far enough to fund public clinics and for continuing to include police in mental health crisis calls.

“I still can not understand why the mayor believes that there always should be an armed officer present where we're attending to [a mental health] crisis in our city,” she said.

THE CLOSING OF HOMAN SQUARE

On November 16, nine members of the City Council’s progressive caucus introduced an ordinance calling for the complete removal of police officers from the controversial CPD detention site at South Homan and West Fillmore. The proposal would divert money from that facility to fund “youth services, addiction services and rapid re-housing services” in North Lawndale.

In 2016, community organizers with the #LetUsBreathe Collective created the Freedom Square encampment in an empty lot directly across the street from the Homan Square facility. For six weeks, organizers created a safe space for community members to gather and learn about alleged torture and incognito detention at the site. This came after a 2015 investigation by The Guardian which detailed these allegations, including beating and shackling detainees as well as denying attorneys access to their clients.

Organizers with the #LetUsBreathe Collective, BYP100 and Black Lives Matter Chicago draw a direct connection from the secretive Homan Square facility to the city’s history of police torture. Also in 2015, Chicago passed the nation’s first reparations package for 57 torture survivors from the 70s and 80s, after a team of officers led by former CPD Cmdr. Jon Burge tortured over 125 individuals into confessing crimes many did not commit.

“In the last few weeks, the ordinance was drafted up which is connected to the budget process,” said Damon Williams, co-founder of the #LetUsBreathe Collective and community and cultural organizer at the Chicago Torture Justice Center. He hopes the budget framing will overcome hurdles faced by previous attempts to close the site: namely, the secrecy around what happens there. “A big part of [the Homan Square site] was so obfuscated. When there's so limited transparency, it's actually very difficult to know what's in there, who's operating it,” said Williams.

The ordinance brings this years-long battle into the conversation around the relatively new Defund CPD movement. Police abolition, after all, is not a new idea in Chicago. Even after this ordinance, along with Treatment Not Trauma, was relegated to the City Council Rules Committee (where they often languish, untouched), supporters of the Defund Police movement say they’ll continue to fight.

“We have this Defund [CPD] moment and we have this [year’s] uprising, where we're able to then build out on politics that have been kindling or been developing now, for four or five years,” said Williams.

A guide to who holds the power and purse strings when it comes to Chicago’s money.

By Grace Del Vecchio, Kelly Garcia, Corli Jay and F. Amanda Tugade, City Bureau

This story was originally published by City Bureau on October 16, 2020

City Bureau presents a guide to who makes money move in the city's annual budget process.

What is Chicago’s annual budget process?

The budget process takes place from July to December with a new budget enacted on Jan. 1 of each year. Starting in July, city departments work with the Office of Budget and Management on their financial needs for the next year’s budget. By September, the mayor’s budget forecast is shared with City Council and the public.

In mid-October, the mayor must propose a budget to City Council which will then host lengthy hearings, including at least one public hearing (this year, it’s on Nov. 16) where Chicagoans can make public comment. Aldermen typically vote on a spending plan in November and by law they must pass a budget by Dec. 31.

What are the different parts of the budget? 

When City Council votes on the annual budget, they are approving the spending plan for all six parts in the budget, also known as funds: corporate, enterprise, grant, special revenue, pension and debt service. The budget is not one big piggy bank; each fund allots dollars to specific services and programs in the city.

The corporate fund, or the general operating fund, makes up a bulk of the budget and supports a range of public safety, public health and city services. This includes the Chicago police and fire departments, trash and recycling pickups, and street repairs. The Chicago Police Board and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability also fall under this category. For larger, long-term capital improvement projects, like curb and gutter repairs, the city leans on its debt service funds, which includes general obligation and revenue bonds and loans.

With the enterprise funds, the city is able to operate, maintain and invest in capital projects for its water and sewer systems and two major airports, O’Hare and Midway. These funds are “self-supporting,” which means revenues come from charges and user fees. For example, residents and businesses pay for water service charges, and airlines fund the airports’ operations through landing fees and terminal rent.

The city has received grant funds from federal, state and local governments, as well as private organizations, to help support programs for youth, seniors, community development and many more. In 2020 projections, the city anticipated $1.76 billion in grant funds, which would’ve made up 14% of the total budget.

The best way to understand special revenue funds is to look more closely at certain taxes. Fees collected from vehicle stickers, impoundment or towing are another source of the city’s revenue. With vehicle stickers costing around $90, the city sought to earn $129 million in revenue this year from that tax alone. Residents also pay a $5 surcharge on their monthly cell phone bill to help fully fund the Office of Emergency Management and Communications (the city’s 911 service line).

Pension funds round out the rest of the budget and pay pensions for city workers such as police officers and firemen. These funds – which are divided into four separate pension accounts – include retirement, death and disability benefits for city employees and their beneficiaries.

How many aldermen need to vote ‘yes’ to pass the budget?

At least 26 must vote ‘yes’ to pass the budget. Last year, 11 of the 50 aldermen rejected Mayor Lightfoot’s $11.65 billion budget; six Democratic Socialist aldermen said they would vote no due to “an over-reliance on property taxes, an ‘overfunding’ of police and the new minimum wage that leaves out tipped workers, such as restaurant servers,” according to a WBEZ report. Their dissenting votes were considered bold since mayoral budgets often receive a “nearly unanimous” rubber stamp approval in City Council.

In 2012, reporter Mick Dumke wrote in the Chicago Reader that no more than three aldermen voted against a mayor’s budget proposal between 1990 to 2013. “The most opposition came in 1991, Daley's third year on the job, when 18 aldermen said no to the mayor's 1992 budget,” Dumke wrote.

How much power do the aldermen have compared with the mayor in the budget process?

In theory, Chicago’s City Council has a “weak mayor” since the aldermen have some legislative powers, including voting on the annual budget. In practice, City Council has historically operated with a “strong mayor” where the mayor acts like a chief executive officer, including exercising the right to veto. “Structure makes the mayor weak, politics make the mayor strong,” Larry Bennett, emeritus professor of political science at DePaul University, told City Bureau in 2019.

In recent years, aldermen have been widely criticized for not showing up to required meetings and hearings, including budget hearings. Back-to-back budget hearings are scheduled to “scrutinize each department’s budget” soon after the mayor reveals a budget plan on Oct. 21, taking place over a span of almost two weeks, before aldermen vote.

“Many aldermen believe the biggest problem in Chicago government is its deeply flawed budget process, in which the mayoral administration crafts and presents a budget that aldermen have a couple of weeks to look over before deciding whether to vote for it. Most aren’t able to study more than a few portions of it, even if they’re willing,” wrote Dumke in a 2009 Chicago Reader article.

How does Chicago’s one-year budget process compare to other cities which may have a multi-year process?

Chicago operates on an annual budget cycle, allocating money for one year. While this is common in other large American cities such as Philadelphia, New York City and Los Angeles, some cities such as Oakland and Richmond allocate money for a period of two years.

Biennial budgeting can provide a city with a greater, wider understanding of how debt, inflation, pensions and more will impact the city in the future and complement long-term strategic plans.

As time runs out, some of the neighborhoods in Chicago with the lowest census response rates are those with high numbers of Latinx immigrants.

By Alexandra Arriaga | City Bureau

This story was originally published by City Bureau on 08.26.2020

Pilar Rodriguez sat at a table full of census brochures in front of a popular outdoor Zumba class in Pilsen during the first week of August. As the sun set, a group of mostly Latina women exercised to loud music while their children played nearby.

Rodriguez is a census ambassador for Alivio Medical Center, a clinic in Pilsen contracted by Cook County for census outreach. That evening, she approached people in the plaza for a few hours, talking to families in both English and Spanish to make sure they were counted in the 2020 census. But even at a joyful event like this, she picked up on some hostility.

“Many people fear the census,” Rodriguez said in Spanish.

The Trump administration’s attempted changes to the census have stoked fear and discouraged immigrants from responding, according to PRI The World reporting. On top of delays in outreach due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Census Bureau announced recently it will end all counting efforts one month sooner than planned on September 30.

With just one month left, nearly one in every four U.S. households still need to be counted. This huge gap to connect with the nation’s hardest-to-reach residents includes some of Chicago’s immigrant communities. In the final stretch before the new deadline, census workers can be seen in neighborhoods with low response rates throughout Chicago, in a race against time to complete as many census forms as possible.

Which immigrant communities in Chicago have the lowest response rates?

According to recently reported response rates on Aug. 26, census tracts in Back of the Yards, Englewood and Little Village have some of the lowest response rates city wide—ranging from 25% to 32%. The census tract with the lowest response rate in Chicago is in Back of the Yards where almost half of the tract’s population is foreign-born, with 89% from Latin America. In this tract, the current response rate is at 25.8%, far below the 2010 final response rate of 44.6%. Citywide, Chicago’s response rate is at 57.9%, still below the goal of 75% or the 2010 response rate of 66%.

However, not all census tracts with high foreign-born populations have low census response rates. The tracts with the highest foreign-born populations in Chicago—located in West Ridge, Edgewater and Chinatown—also have average response rates that range between 55% to 70%. The national 2020 census response rate as of Aug. 26 is 64.6%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau website.

“The immigrant community [in Chicago] as a whole is very diverse, and looking at the foreign-born population alone doesn't account for the many other factors that make a community hard-to-count, such as the presence of young children, housing insecurity and income levels that all contribute to civic participation,” said Brandon Lee, an Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights census consultant.

Lee also mentioned that census outreach partners hear that warnings about ICE have played a role in some of the mistrust and low response in areas like Little Village and Back of the Yards.

How are census workers reaching out to these hard-to-count immigrant communities?

Under normal circumstances, census workers would have been knocking on doors since March. Local libraries, street festivals and block parties were slated to be public spaces where anyone could complete the census on computers. The pandemic shut down many of those opportunities.

But the strategy—to meet people where they are—remains the same. ICIRR funded and oversees community partners throughout the state for census outreach efforts through a $2.4 million grant from the Illinois Department of Human Services, South Side Weekly reported.

Instead, census outreach workers like Rodriguez post up near popular outdoor spots like fitness-in-the-park classes, pop-up food banks, or drive through neighborhoods in census caravans to reach families who haven’t yet filled out the census. One organization, the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, even collaborated with a laundromat to give residents a free laundry day in exchange for filling out a census form.

One Saturday in August, Brighton Park Neighborhood Council volunteer Maribel Sanchez filled out census forms for 30 to 35 people at Enrico Tonti Elementary School in Gage Park. All morning she dutifully unpacked fruit, vegetables, meat and milk at the food distribution site. After setting up the supplies for the day, she approached people in the line wrapped around the block to fill out their census forms.

“Many people lack information, some lack internet access or don’t know how to use it, so we help them because we all count,” said Sanchez in Spanish.

What motivates immigrants to participate in the census?

As a health worker, Rodriguez says she frames census participation to immigrants around bringing more healthcare resources to their communities.

“Don’t you get sick?” she’ll ask, “and do you have insurance?”

Rodriguez asks this with the understanding that one out of every three patients in the Cook County health system is uninsured, and many are immigrants who don’t qualify for Medicaid. Cook County used census data to start a program that helps uninsured people gain access to healthcare in 2016.

Resources for healthcare, education and other public services motivate immigrants in Chicago to participate in the census. City Bureau Documenters asked 15 first-generation immigrants why they would do the census in May. They gave diverse reasons for participating. Two said they saw it as their “civic duty,” or “like voting.” Six mentioned budgets and resources for their local communities, and two specifically mentioned school funding.

There was also a sense that people want to be counted for the sake of recognition and representation. Eight people from traditionally undercounted immigrant communities said they planned to complete the census this year because they want to establish that they exist and, in turn, gain more political representation.

“We want to be counted,” one respondent from the Philippines said. “We want to let them know that we’re existing, man.”

Who’s most likely to be missed in the census count?

Children under five can be particularly difficult to count, and are often a demographic with a lot at stake. If children go undercounted, programs like Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), special education and preschool programs, may lose funding. Overall, Illinois risks losing $195 million each year for every 1% of the population that goes undercounted, according to state officials.

Nationally, Latinx children are at a high risk of being undercounted. In Cook County, 130,949 children are at a high risk of being undercounted, according to data from the Population Reference Bureau.

Neighborhoods in Chicago with children under five living in immigrant families are at greater risk of an undercount. “Based on the characteristics we identified, these are areas with high shares of kids living in poverty, in female-headed households, in grandparent-headed households with limited English speaking abilities,” said Mark Mather from the Population Reference Bureau.

The census can be filled out online or over the phone by calling, 844-330-2020.