Lightfoot delays budget address until Oct. 21, giving Congress more time to help

Mayor Lori Lightfoot is pushing back her 2021 budget address — until Oct. 21 — to give Congress more time to ride to the rescue.

Chicago faces a record $1.2 billion shortfall in next year’s budget, $783 million of it revenue lost to the coronavirus. The rest is rising pension payments and what remains of the city’s structural deficit.

Lightfoot said last week she is optimistic Congress will approve another round of stimulus funding, including replacement revenue for state and local government. She noted “cities and towns are dying for resources” having cut both personnel and services “to the bone.”

The mayor was originally scheduled to deliver her second budget address at a special City Council meeting on Oct. 14, according to the city clerk’s website.

Pushing that back a week gives House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin more time to find middle ground between the $2.2 trillion stimulus plan approved by the Democratic-controlled House and Mnuchin’s latest offer of $1.6 trillion.

A press release announcing the delay quoted Lightfoot as saying Chicago has been forced to confront “not only the devastating health consequences” of the coronavirus, but the “economic destruction left in its wake, all while having to navigate the uncertainty around how long this will continue.”

“We must make the difficult decisions under the conditions we are currently in, and this means confronting a potential absence of additional federal funding,” she said.

Chicago Federation of Labor President Bob Reiter said it makes sense to hold off. The federation has an ownership stake in the Sun-Times.

“We haven’t seen anything like this in a hundred years. … The type of federal stimulus that could be on the table could be extraordinary for state and local government,” Reiter said.

“We definitely have to wait and cross our fingers that, regardless of who is president and how the legislature shakes out, our national leadership is going to understand that the only way you can help drive this economy going forward is to help support it now when it’s at its most vulnerable.”

Lightfoot has argued the “seismic disruption” of Chicago’s economy is so great her “pandemic” budget can be balanced only with replacement revenue from Washington, concessions from city unions and new revenues that just might include a dreaded property tax increase.

On Monday, Reiter said negotiations between the mayor and organized labor are under way.

“What they’ve said is that they want to be able to save a certain amount of money, but it’s sort of open-ended on how that can happen,” Reiter said.

“No, ‘either-do-this-or-that-happens’ type of situation. They have not made an ultimatum. It’s not them saying, ‘This is what’s gonna happen.’ Both sides are trying to figure out where we can find cost savings.”

In 2011, the Chicago Federation of Labor served up a smorgasbord of ways to cut the city budget by $242 million — eliminating redundant layers of middle management, improving efficiency and having city employees do work currently doled out to politically-connected contractors.

The report focused on labor’s longstanding beef that City Hall has been quick to farm out work formerly done by city employees and too slow to eliminate unnecessary layers of supervisors, many earning six-figure salaries.

The ideas labor is pushing now are similar to suggestions made then, Reiter said, and include “any number of ways that could improve the way the city delivers services and maximize their ability to cut costs without impacting essential workers. ... We are working to try to get the city to do this with us collaboratively” in a way that “preserves city services and protects essential workers.”

So far, the city’s 33,000-employee workforce has escaped the pain endured by private-sector employees who have seen hours and paychecks shrink — if they’re lucky enough to still have jobs.

Chief Financial Officers Jennie Huang Bennett and Budget Director Susie Park have made it clear that cannot continue. The mayor needs concessions that may include a mix of layoffs, furlough days and pay cuts.

But, Reiter said: “I don’t think we’ve fully explored how to save money before we get to that point.”

Even though the mayor’s budget address has been delayed, Chicago aldermen are tired of being kept in the dark.

Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36^th), the mayor’s City Council floor leader, said he’s pushing for aldermanic briefings on the tough choices ahead as soon as possible.

“When you tell someone, ‘Everything is on the table,’ people want to know, what does that mean?” Villegas said.

“As much communication as possible on this budget is required in order to get as much support as possible for passage. Over-communication is good. It’s important that they know … the direction the administration wants to go in and find out what can be supported.”