Aldermen upset over price hikes toward repair ‘menu’
Determined to avoid a City Council rebellion when he’s trying to line up votes for a $588 million property tax hike, Mayor Rahm Emanuel opted to preserve a $66 million-a-year program that allows Chicago aldermen to choose from a menu of neighborhood improvements.
But that’s apparently not enough for some City Council members. They want to know why the Chicago Department of Transportation is behaving like a restaurant by raising the price of “menu” items like street, sidewalk and alley repairs.
With Transportation Commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld on the hot seat at City Council budget hearings Thursday, Ald. George Cardenas (12th) compared the annual exercise to shopping at Bloomingdale’s.
“You’re afraid of the accessories. If youwant to add a little something, that’s going to cost more. When you’re done pricing it out, it’s a suit you can’t afford,” Cardenas said.
“A couple of streets, a couple of lighting projects and you’re done. I’m going to retire before I even finish lighting up McKinley Park. I’d like to fix that.”
Cardenas demanded to know why CDOT was raising its prices so high, the $1.32 million allotted annually to each of the 50 aldermen is gone in a flash.
“I know inflation is not the problem. But our dollars are worth half of what they were worth four or eight years ago,” Cardenas said.
“Is it labor costs? Is it raw materials? Is it outside contracting? What is this external cost that’s eating away at our dollars?”
Scheinfeld said she “sympathizes” with the complaint and said she’s well aware that $1.32 million a year does not “cover the needs in your ward annually.” She offered to help aldermen “spread your dollars as far as possible” and “get the biggest bang for your buck.”
Pressed to explain the price hikes, Scheinfeld said menu prices are “based on actual costs” and updated after “material purchases or other contracted services” are awarded.
“For example, our asphalt material contract is re-bid periodically. That’s a competitive bid. I believe those prices have gone up, similar to lighting installation,” she said.
“We try to hold the line as much as possible, and we make sure we get competitive bids for those. But when those actual costs are raised, we need to reflect that in the menu program in terms of what those actual costs are. But I’m sympathetic.”
Cardenas said there’s got to be a way to “grow our menu pot” through some of the other money CDOT gets from grants or “third parties.”
“We should be having some allocation of that. ... That menu money should be augmented, not the other way around, because $1.3 million just doesn’t buy anything anymore,” he said.
“You’ve had an increase in your budget. Obviously, there’s a reason for that. ... Well, the same thing should happen for our menu money?”
Last month, Emanuel made it clear that the menu program that aldermen cherish wasn’t going anywhere — even as he searched high and low to cut costs before lowering the boom on Chicago taxpayers.
“You call it menu money. I see this as aldermen meeting the needs of their community and residents. ... I like putting these people to work building up the quality and the life of our neighborhoods,” the mayor said then.
Implied but not stated was the biggest reason the aldermanic menu program was staying put: If Emanuel dared to eliminate it — or even reduce it— he would have a far more difficult time getting the 26 votes he needs to approve a $588 million property tax increase and a first-ever garbage collection fee of $9.50 a month. He can’t afford to waste his political capital.