In under 10 minutes, and without a quorum, the Committee on Public Safety approved the appointment of Steve Flores, a partner at Winston & Strawn LLP, to the Police Board, the agency in charge of recommending disciplinary action against police officers accused of misconduct.

All this week, aldermen held hearings on Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s nearly $10 billion budget for 2017. Fourteen departments met this week, and with no major taxes or fees, aldermen stuck to familiar pet peeves. This week we bring you a selection from week one of two budget hearings, where aldermen grilled department heads about their budgets, past accomplishments, or, in some cases, failures.

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A protester interrupted Thursday morning’s budget hearing on the Department of Buildings, loudly chanting, “16 shots and a cover up!”, marking the two-year anniversary of Laquan McDonald’s death. The meeting was otherwise routine, mostly focusing on the city’s large stock of vacant buildings. The issue was best summed up by Ald. Mike Zalewski (23): “The very, very, very frustrating issue of a house that has been sitting and sitting, vacant and abandoned, and dilapidated, and rat infested, and squirrel infested.”

A more than three hour budget hearing for the Department of Transportation was a near replica of last year’s hearing: many requests to amend the aldermanic menu program, and many questions on a long-delayed, but much touted, citywide lighting project.

No questions were asked of the Board of Ethics Thursday, as the Council’s Budget Committee concluded the Board’s hearing in less than five minutes. It had to be a record.

Fire Commissioner Jose Santiago says a long-running discrimination lawsuit against the department’s hiring practices has “really put us behind the eight ball” in terms of keeping up with attrition rates. Santiago made the comments at an hour long hearing on his department’s proposed budget for 2017, which is seeing an $8.9 million increase over 2016.

Chicago’s plan to update its emergency radio system is expected to cost about $40 million over the next five years, and a current contract with Motorola is insufficient to cover the full implementation of the upgrade, Office of Emergency Management staff told aldermen Wednesday. The upgrade would encrypt all calls over the city’s emergency dispatch system, preventing people from listening in through a police scanner.

The disclosure was made during a nearly three-hour hearing with the new head of the city’s Office of Emergency Management, Commissioner Alicia Tate-Nadeau, as she mainly fielded questions from aldermen about long response times for 911 calls, modernization plans for the city’s 311 system, as well as personal anecdotes from aldermen who are irritated with a plan from last year to move crossing guards from the police department to OEMC.

The Department of Human Resources has made minimal gains in minority hiring over the past year, several Black and Latino aldermen complained Wednesday. Both groups also raised skepticism that a new Chief Diversity Officer would improve those numbers. Efforts to broaden diversity among the Chicago Police Department’s new pool of recruits over the next two years were also called into question at a two hour hearing on DHR Commissioner Soo Choi’s proposed $7.2 million dollar budget.

Aldermen spent a majority of the Police Board’s budget hearing late Tuesday afternoon questioning Board President Lori Lightfoot how the new police oversight systems will impact her board’s work. The Police Board reviews disciplinary requests and recommends action against officers accused of serious misconduct.

With the presidential election three weeks away and early voting underway since September 29, the Board of Elections Commissioners spent their testimony updating aldermen on registration numbers and planned voter information campaigns at their roughly 40 minute hearing Tuesday. And it was not without some sarcasm regarding Chicago’s history of voter fraud and questions about one presidential candidate's claim of this year's “rigged election.”

Modernization of the city’s outdated 311 system will include a cloud based software that’ll automatically update regularly like a cell phone operating system, Department of Innovation and Technology Commissioner Brenna Berman told aldermen Tuesday.

With no major taxes or fees proposed, and lacking a threat of one of the city’s pension funds becoming insolvent, the first hearing on Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s FY 2017 budget was fairly uneventful compared to past years. At Monday’s day long hearing, aldermen asked a grab bag of questions of City Budget Director Alex Holt, Comptroller Erin Keane, and Chief Financial Officer Carole Brown. Frequent topics included the new Community Catalyst Fund, two new pilot programs to ease car congestion downtown and at Wrigley Field, and the Chicago Police Department’s hiring plans.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s ambitious plan to add 970 new positions within the Chicago Police Department by 2018 is a complicated numbers game, making it difficult to quantify exactly the net number of new police officers who will join the force over the next two years.

Aldermen are scheduled for more briefings this morning on the police department’s plan to hire 250 new officers next year as part of a two year hiring plan. It’s one of several initiatives in Mayor Emanuel’s $9.81 billion budget that aldermen say they’ll be taking a closer look ahead of the budget vote in November.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s 2017 budget includes a $1 million appropriation for a new Municipal ID program that is still largely in the planning stage.

Mayor Emanuel and City Clerk Susana Mendoza, whose department would oversee the program, issued identical press releases Wednesday announcing the initiative as part of the city’s overall budget for 2017. But, according those involved in the implementation of the program, a lot of the finer points have yet to be worked out.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel unveils 2017 budget. Credit: Claudia Morell

Mayor Rahm Emanuel unveiled his $9.81 billion spending plan for 2017 Tuesday, providing details on his blueprint to boost hiring at the Chicago Police Department, modernize the city’s 311 system, and continue investments in blighted neighborhoods.

The $9.8 billion FY2017 budget includes about $3.72 billion is corporate fund expenditures, a 3.6% increase over FY2016, and $1.59 billion in grant funding.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel will unveil his FY 2017 budget this morning in the City Council Chambers, which will likely include provisions of a tentative agreement reached with the Chicago Teachers Union late last night. Few other details of the mayor’s budget plan have been revealed, other than the idea of adding a 7-cent tax on plastic bags, according to the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune. This added tax would, in theory, add teeth to the existing plastic bag ban by providing an incentive for customers to bring a reusable bag.

After nearly a year of community meetings, hearings, and private briefings, the City Council approved a police reform package that will dissolve the Independent Police Review Authority, the agency in charge of investigating cases of police misconduct, and replace it with a newer agency with a larger budget and stronger authority. While few were fully satisfied with the legislation, the full City Council approved the ordinance at their monthly meeting Wednesday, along with new public decorum rules for council committee meetings. Those rules seemed aimed squarely at concerned citizen George Blakemore.

Meanwhile, as the city prepared for budget season, the Chicago Teachers’ Union is gearing up to strike, prompting renewed efforts by aldermen and education advocacy groups to pressure the Emanuel administration to surplus extra tax increment financing (TIF) money. But not everyone on the City Council is on board with the plan, as TIF dollars are largely used to support economic development in blighted neighborhoods. And some aldermen who represent those areas of the city say they don’t want to hand over their pot of property tax money for what they call a “one-time” fix for CPS.

Aldermen will be briefed on Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s budget plans–including hiring plans for the Chicago Police Department–ahead of his scheduled October 11th address, according to an internal administration communication email obtained by The Daily Line. The Budget Department will email budget information to aldermen on the Columbus Day holiday.

With a potential teacher strike scheduled for Tuesday, a coalition of elected officials and parents groups will hold a press conference at 9:00 a.m. on the second floor of City Hall to demand passage of an ordinance that would direct surplus TIF money to Chicago Public Schools.

LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST: Should TIFS support CPS? (July 29, 2016)

Ald. George Cardenas (12) and Ald. Sue Sadlowski-Garza (9), the main sponsors of the ordinance, will be joined by Cook County Clerk David Orr, State Rep. Will Guzzardi, and State Rep. Ann Williams. Aldermen Scott Waguespack (32), Matt O’Shea (19), and Ald. Harry Osterman (48) are also expected to attend.

The Finance Committee has already held two subject matter hearings on the so-called Chicago Public Education Revitalization Ordinance, which would create an official mechanism for the city to direct all surplus TIF money to CPS. Debate at those meetings highlighted a clear divide among aldermen: Supporters framed the ordinance as a way to come together as a city to the support the financially distressed school system, while opponents said “their” TIF money, which has taken years to build up, is too valuable to hand over for a “one-time” fix for CPS.