The president of one of Chicago’s most respected taxpayer watchdog groups on Thursday beat the drum for cost-cutting reforms with the potential to revolutionize city government.
Over the years, the Civic Federation has repeatedly advocated for cutting the 50-member City Council in half, only to have alderpersons protect their fiefdoms, aided by acquiescence from Chicago mayors who chose the political path of least resistance.
The Civic Federation and now-former Inspector General Joe Ferguson ran into the same wall of opposition when they dared suggest alderpersons lose their treasured aldermanic menu money. That program gives each Council member $1.8 million to spend on projects they choose.
But Sarah Wetmore, the federation’s acting president, believes the election of Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s most progressive mayor ever, along with a younger, more liberal Council, has created a host of reform opportunities once thought politically impossible.
“The average size of a City Council for the largest 15 cities in the United States is 18 members. … If other cities can function with a smaller and, therefore, less costly City Council, then there’s no reason why the city of Chicago couldn’t either,” Wetmore told the Sun-Times Thursday.
Studies going back to the 1950s have demonstrated that the larger the Council, the more members “tend to focus on minute” and ministerial functions in their wards, like filling potholes, removing snow, picking up garbage and replacing street lights, Wetmore said.
That’s supposed to be the ward superintendent’s job, but it isn’t. Which is why longtime veteran Tony Laurino (39th) proudly proclaimed himself an “alley alderman.”
The advent of a 311 system that allows Chicagoans to use apps to request city services should pave the way for a smaller Council focused on policymaking, serving as a legislative partner to the mayor, Wetmore said.
“Different Council members have said that focusing on constituent services takes up a lot of their time,” she said.
A federation proposal to merge the elected offices of city clerk and treasurer — and make it a job appointed by the mayor — would, like a smaller Council, need legislative approval.
But Wetmore said it can be done — and has been, already. The Cook County offices of clerk and recorder of deeds were merged, just as the federation had urged.
“You want a policy-making position to be held accountable to the voters,” she said. “Positions like clerk and treasurer are implementing policy. They’re not making it.”
When Ferguson proposed shifting control over the menu program to the Chicago Department of Transportation and making the project choices part of a multi-year capital plan, Council members’ reaction was fast and furious.
That didn’t stop Wetmore from making the case again.
“Best practices in terms of how the city spends capital include hewing to a multi-year financial plan which is based on need. The aldermanic menu program spreads revenue across all of the 50 wards not based on need,” leaving residential infrastructure underfunded.
Yet another politically volatile idea is to impose annual increases in a garbage collection fee that’s been frozen at $9.50-a-month since its 2015 inception — or, impose a volume-based fee to offset the actual cost of removing waste from 600,000 Chicago households.
“You don’t want to set-and-forget something,” Wetmore said. “You want to continually evaluate whether that’s the right way to raise revenue to pay for the service.”
Also on the federation’s list: “civilianizing” the Chicago Police Department.
Every Chicago mayor since Richard M. Daley has made a public show of transferring Chicago police officers from desk jobs to street duty — with little to show for it.
More than 93% of the 14,058 budgeted positions in the 2022 CPD budget were sworn personnel, according to a Civic Federation report. That’s 13.8 sworn officers for every civilian employee.
In other major cities, civilians hold 22.2% of law enforcement jobs, with 3.5 sworn officers for every civilian employee.
Wetmore argued that fully “civilianizing” CPD, freeing sworn officers to fight violent crime, should be done in conjunction with a new, more comprehensive study to determine how sworn officers are allocated citywide.
“There’s not enough transparency in terms of how they’re doing that. What data do they use? There needs to be a public evaluation of how many officers the city needs, [and] how far short of that level are we right now.”
