Rahm Emanuel stressed last week that his 2012 city budget proposal is an “honest” document unlike those budgets drawn up by former mayor Richard Daley. But the real problem may be that the city doesn’t have the money it needs.

“This budget relies significantly less on one-time revenue and took a step forward on transparency,” says Ralph Matire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. “But our main issue is not transparency – It’s the city being constantly put in a position where it is always behind in revenue.”

The mayor’s power to generate more revenue is limited, though Matire argues Emanuel could do more. In any case, Emanuel wants major cuts in areas that include public health, public libraries, and even the police department to help close a $637 million budget deficit.

Health, Library and Police Cuts

In contrast to other departments, the Mayor’s office only laid out the Chicago Department of Public Health budget for the first six months of 2012. The reason is that the city will transition patients at its seven primary public health clinics to what the city’s budget overview describes as, “community-based federally-qualified health clinics by July of 2012.”

Anders Lindall, spokesman for AFSCME Council 31 – the union that represents city health workers, reads this as the privatization of hitherto public health clinics. “The budget raises the specter of wholesale privatization of city health clinics,” he says. 

Emanuel’s office did not return multiple calls regarding the fate of these health clinics.

The budget proposal also cuts the number of city run mental health clinics from 12 to six, another change that would happen in July 2012. The budget overview promises that the clinic eliminations would let uninsured mental health patients get health care in a “more cost-effective manner.” 

But Lindall sees it as a “decimation of health clinics” and feels that health care cost reductions are the most troubling aspect of Emanuel’s budget proposal.

The proposed budget also hits the Chicago Public Library. Of the 517 layoffs of city workers outlined in the budget, 363 are public library workers, including librarians, library clerks, and pages. 

According to the budget overview, the number of library employees would be reduced 32 percent from 1,128 to 765 full-time employees. 

Lindall (Local 31 also represents library workers) points out that the cuts come two years after Daley made his own round of cuts to library personnel. Daley’s cutting of more than 100 library pages resulted in librarians saying they were overworked. 

“Emanuel would be repeating and compounding the mistakes of Daley,” Lindall said. 

The cuts will immediately result in library branches eliminating eight hours from their business week.

The most surprising cuts are those to the police department – surprising because Emanuel has emphasized throughout his short tenure that he’s increasing the number of cops on the street. 

But the Emanuel budget reduces the number of full-time police department employees by nine percent from 15,659 to 14,2307. The majority of these personnel reductions do stem from more honest budgeting, like Emanuel’s acknowledgment that positions the Daley administration budgets listed as “vacant” will, in fact, never be filled.

“They finally stopped playing the smoke and mirrors game,” says Pat Camden, spokesman of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, which represents city police officers.

Camden, though, is upset with the budget because hundreds of the personnel cuts are retiring officers – including Emanuel’s much-championed beat cops – that the mayor doesn’t plan to replace.

“They are 520 officers retiring this year and they are hiring 100 to replace them,” Camden says. “So his replacements don’t even come close to what he lost this year to say nothing of [retirements] next year.”

Camden is also upset that Emanuel announced he was closing three of the police department’s 25 district stations without detailing how these closings will impact the police department. “Where are those officers from those stations going to be deployed?” Camden says.

Looking For Cash

Emanuel’s first budget only tinkers around the edges in raising new revenue – making it more expensive to purchase an SUV city sticker; raising the tax on a hotel stay tourists; and making non-profits like hospitals and churches begin to pay for their water. 

Matire argues that Emanuel should do more to follow through on his campaign idea to expand the city’s 9.75 percent sales tax to consumer services. While Chicago has the highest sales tax in the country, many consumer services – from haircuts to joining a country club – are not part of this tax. 

It would be up to the Illinois General Assembly, not the Chicago City Council, to approve such a tax. But Emanuel has shown the ability to get the General Assembly to pass what he wants – from a landmark education bill to a major gambling expansion package (which Gov. Pat Quinn might, after all, veto).

Apart from cajoling the state, though, Emanuel has limited authority to raise the revenue needed for both day-to-day operating expenses like public health and safety as well as long-term expenses like public employee pension funds. Most of these revenue increases happen at the federal and state level.

Where the mayor does have authority is that the City Council typically lacks the staff resources or political inclination to challenge budget proposals. The City Council rubber-stamped Daley’s budgets, but it bears watching if they do the same for the rookie mayor – particularly with the proposed cuts to public health and safety.