Rahm's 'savage cuts' to public services

I just received this press release from Stephanie Gadlin at the CTU.

Chicago Teachers Union Response to Mayor’s Budget Address:

Emanuel’s seeks balance through savage cuts to public services by using accounting trickery

CHICAGO – Today, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) released the following statement in response to the Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Budget Address:

“At the end of today’s city budget address, Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed with a comment touting downtown business growth. His perspective is particularly apropos: in a city where the top 5 percent of earners make 25 percent of the income and unemployment in some parts of the south and west sides nears 50 percent, three-quarters of those downtown jobs have gone to people outside of the city,” said CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey.

“A budget for everyone would address these realities, but this budget continues a top-down imposition of two distinct cities, one for the privileged and one for everyone else. Similar to other Emanuel budgets, “balance” comes through savage cuts to public service and accounting trickery, as there is only minimal revenue generation in this budget, and what is included, like taxes on car leases and increased cell phone taxes, are incredibly regressive. The mayor’s proposals on crime, education, and the minimum wage make this two-tiered system clear.”

Overall statistical declines mask the intensity in which Chicagoans’ experience with crime differs, Sharkey noted. The reality on the ground is that neighborhoods on the South and West sides of the city continue to struggle with daily violence. Budgetary allocations for police only cover positions lost to retirement and are nowhere near what the mayor promised during this first campaign.

Emanuel continues to support the failed policy of mandatory minimums as a solution to gun crime; such an approach only drives up the cost of incarceration, does not deter shootings, and absent sufficient support for re-entry, those with felony records have little opportunity for employment. Those incarceration costs are merely shifted to other tax payers, allowing the Mayor to take all the credit without paying any of the expense.

Furthermore, the mayor’s decision to shutter mental health clinics continues to shift costs to the county jail and county hospital while increasing risks to all Chicagoans. Last week’s blue line shooter had a history of untreated mental illness. A budget that worked for all Chicagoans would restore funding for mental health clinics, provide resources for real community policing, and would support comprehensive re-entry programs for parolees.

MAYOR’S MISGUIDED EDUCATION REFORMS

On education, Mayor Emanuel takes credit for policies that he did not start and hides the savage cuts he’s pushed. Graduation rates were already increasing prior to his election, and the real credit must go to the school staffs who daily work with students. These same school staffs have seen savage cuts to their budgets over the past three years, including hundreds of lost positions for the longer school day the mayor demanded. Students across the city are going without art, music, world language, and PE because of those cuts. Dozens of librarians have been shifted into teaching positions, so libraries go unused because of inadequate staffing.

These library cuts come on top of slashed Chicago Public Library hours. Furthermore, while the Emanuel touted After School Matters, elementary school after-school programs have been slashed across the city. For instance, Gale Elementary School suffered $1 million in budget cuts (the same as the expansion of ASM), eliminated all after school programs, and has to raise money for books. Also omitted from this budget address was the impact of the 50 school closures the Mayor rammed through that have not resulted in major financial savings but have negatively impacted the students and families forced to change schools (again, mainly on the South and West sides).

Finally, the so-called “universal” expansion of pre-K is much less than advertised. The mayor’s proposal only covers four-year olds (instead of three-year olds as well), is free only for the lowest-income families, varies widely in quality depending on whether in a CPS program with highly-trained and certified teachers or in a private day care with less qualified workers, and is funded with a complex scheme that rewards Goldman Sachs with additional profits on top of the millions from toxic swaps the economy-crashing bank has already received. The Mayor’s education policies have never deviated from a failed corporate reform model and have outraged parents across the city.

TWO-TIERED APPROACH TO GOVERNANCE

On the minimum wage, Sharkey noted, the Mayor’s proposal also shows the two-tiered nature of his overall approach to governance. There are no protections for tipped workers or domestic workers, two of the largest categories of minimum wage earners in the city, and these are often the Black and Latino workers who have been left out of the downtown boom. Worse, despite claims of eliminating the need for choosing food or medical care, the Mayor’s minimum wage proposal leaves low-wage families in poverty. The ordinance would only be above the poverty line by 2018, and by 2019, by the time the full $13 kicks in; low-wage workers would be 9 cents over that line. The economic impact of the Mayor’s proposal is half of the competing $15 ordinance. Chicago needs the $15/hour wage ordinance, and it needs that ordinance now.

“The CTU remains committed to policies that have real impact, including revenue-generating plans like the LaSalle Street Tax and TIF reforms that create real, fair investment streams rather than more of the same warmed-over conventional wisdom. We support the $15 minimum wage, the privatization, transparency and accountability ordinance, restoration of cuts to social services, and real funding for retirement security. These proposals are possible when we survey the entire city, not just those who can be seen from the fifth floor,” said Sharkey.