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Stroger won budget battle -- now wage war on patronage
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Chicago Sun-Times Editorial
February 26, 2007
The 2007 budget that was approved by the Cook
County Board in the wee hours last Friday was a clear political
victory for President Todd Stroger. In his first big test
as county leader, he won a showdown with a bloc of commissioners
who pushed a rival spending plan. But a political win for
Stroger is not necessarily a victory for Cook County residents.
There are still troubling questions about whether fat and
patronage were preserved while essential services got chopped.
On the bright side, the board passed a budget that covered
a $500 million gap not by raising taxes but by refinancing
bonds and by slashing programs and 1,700 jobs. Such an achievement
would have been unthinkable as recently as a year ago, and
taxpayers should be pleased. This year also saw commissioners
far more engaged in vetting the president's budget -- that
is, doing their jobs -- than in years past.
But while we understand that it would have been impossible
to craft a perfect budget given the county's poor fiscal
health, we think commissioners could have come closer. Stroger's
final budget preserved the jobs of most of the 400 managers
that Commissioner Forrest Claypool (D-Chicago) and other
commissioners in the rival bloc wanted to ax in favor of
retaining more nurses, police, prosecutors and other frontline
workers. Claypool argued those managers are political hacks,
but where he saw patronage, Stroger saw indispensible workers.
Who is right? It's going to take some time to sort that
out, but the person with the credibility problem is Stroger,
who has been thumbing his nose at county taxpayers since
he took office by giving jobs and raises to friends and
relatives.
The final budget makes hefty cuts in nurses, sheriff's police,
court deputies and prosecutors, and it cuts 13 health care
clinics. But Stroger's original budget proposed deeper cuts;
all were scaled back following furious negotiations Thursday
between the president and individual commissioners. Those
changes resulted in some management cuts and helped Stroger
persuade several commissioners to switch their support to
his plan from the rival proposal.
After the smoke cleared, Stroger declared that the budget
was leading the county in the right direction. We hope that's
true. The 2007 spending plan was hastily crafted in the
midst of a huge fiscal crisis by a rookie leader, and it
still produced some significant, albeit incomplete, results
-- but also troubling cuts in law enforcement and health
care. The county now has a year in which to get ready for
2008. It should build on the momentum and continue to streamline
operations. It should audit every position and take a serious
whack at patronage jobs. If Stroger is serious about reform
-- and the jury is still out on that -- the hard part is
just beginning.
