Rahm downs IG’s idea of stripping aldermen of menu money
Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Friday he is not about to strip aldermen of their cherished control over infrastructure projects in their wards and hand it to professional engineers in the Chicago Department of Transportation.
Following Inspector General Joe Ferguson’s recommendation would be like declaring war on a City Council that has walked the tax plank twice to solve Chicago’s $ 30 billion pension crisis and whose support the mayor needs going forward.
Chicago aldermen cherish their control over the $ 1.32 million distributed annually to each ward to pay for a menu of street, alley, sidewalk and other infrastructure projects of their choosing.
It’s one of the few powers aldermen have left after the city hiring scandal put a lid on government patronage and Emanuel’s switch from a ward- by- ward system to a grid system for garbage collection and street sweeping stripped aldermen of control over those services as well.
Emanuel cannot afford to engage in a running battle with aldermen, particularly as he decides whether or not to seek a third term as mayor.
“Everybody who’s never actually worked in government said, ‘ Let’s get rid… of earmarks. And ever since you got rid of earmarks, Congress has become totally, 100 percent dysfunctional,” said Emanuel, who served as former President Barack Obama’s first White House chief of staff.
“... Iwant residents to give ideas to their alderman. ... I want residents’ input into neighborhood improvements. The worst thing you could do is cut off residents and have that be driven by downtown. Anybody who’s ever recommended it hasn’t been around [ long enough to understand] how the process works from the ground up.”
The mayor noted that he has already made changes to the $ 84 million- a- year program and would not hesitate to make more.
To stretch precious dollars further, the mayor opted to present each alderman with a “recommended list” of projects the city considers “most urgent” in hopes that aldermen would choose to spend their allotment on those projects.
The changes also required aldermen to program 80 percent of their “menu money” by June 30 of each year and spend the remaining 20 percent before Dec. 31 of each calendar year. In 2014, only 31 of the 50 aldermen met the deadline, the inspector general said.
Ferguson made his politically explosive recommendation in a wide- ranging audit this week that hit aldermen where they live.
The audit concluded that the program is underfunded by $ 122.9 million a year, “bears no relationship to the actual infrastructure needs” of each ward and includes significant “funding disparities.”