Commissioner Beavers tees off on Preckwinkle’s county budget

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Cook County Commissioner William Beavers (pictured in February) nattily dressed, as usual. | Brian Jackson~Sun-Times

Updated: October 25, 2011 3:00PM

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle had no more finished announcing her 2012 spending plan Tuesday morning when Commissioner William Beavers, her political nemesis, stepped before a gaggle of reporters and announced “I don’t like this budget.”

He ripped the president’s $2.9 billion spending plan, which calls for expanding the cigarette tax to include loose tobacco, hiking the wholesale alcohol tax and boosting the “use” tax on the sale of titled property including cars and boats.

He called the bump in taxes on beer, from 6 cents to 9 cents, a “poor man’s tax.”

Preckwinkle said boosting sin and luxury taxes helped her close a $315 million budget gap in 2012.

Her proposals for new and increaased taxes and fees, including a push to charge employees and visitors — including jurors — for parking at 26th and California criminal courts complex as well as the five suburban courthouses would bring in $48.4 million in new revenues next year. Preckwinkle is also calling for 1,057 layoffs unless union workers agree to take eight unpaid days off next year, including six holidays.

But Beavers said her push to slash the county’s sales tax a quarter cent next year — a projected loss of $53 million in revenues alone — is part of the reason the county found itself in a financial hole.

He suggests the new round of taxes merely shifts the burden.

“The taxes she’s putting on today is ridiculous — that one penny could have taken care of all of this,” he said, referring to the unpopular penny-on-the-dollar sales tax hike he and others backed in 2008.

What Beavers forgot to mention is that on the eve of the 2010 election, a majority of commissioners erased a half penny of the hike.

But it was Preckwinkle who, after winning the board presidency in 2010, was able to win the support of enough commissioners to pass an ordinance this year gradually erasing the remaining half penny by 2013.

He says the county will lose $250 million in revenues, but Preckwinkle positions it as consumers — hit hard in the recession — collectively saving $250 million.

“Put the penny back and ... get rid of all these other taxes I’ll vote for it,” he said.

That’s not going to happen. Preckwinkle made rolling back the sales tax a cornerstone of her election campaign.

Told on Tuesday Beavers didn’t like the plan, Preckwinkle shrugged it off with a “what a surprise.”

The two weren’t exactly allies when they served on the Chicago City Council, and later Beavers was an ally of former County Board President Todd Stroger, who lost his re-election bid to Preckwinkle.

Preckwinkle has drawn loud praise from several commissioners including Bridget Gainer, Larry Suffredin and others for pushing to reduce the jail and juvenile detention center populations by putting suspects awaiting trial for non-violent offenses on electronic monitoring.

Preckwinkle said shaving the county’s jail population — from about 9,000 to 8,000 — could save the county $5 million, and trimming the juvenile detention center population would save another $1 million.

But several commissioners are skeptical about her proposal to charge residents in unincorporated Cook County for police service provided by the sheriff’s office.

Roughly 100,000 residents living in unincorporated Cook County — about 2 percent of the 5.2 million living in the county — aren’t paying a dime for police services, Preckwinkle says.

“I think everybody should pay their fair share,” Preckwinkle told reporters Tuesday. “There’s no reason why 98 percent of the people in the county should pay for police services for the two percent of the people who live in unincorporated Cook County.”

They can opt to pay for the services or get themselves annexed in to the nearest municipality, she said.

But two Republican commissioners representing the northwest suburbs that include stretches of unincorporated Cook County are shaking their heads.

“I think some of the homeowners in these areas who just opened their [property] tax bill would say they are paying for police services,” said Commissioner Tim Schneider.

Preckwinkle’s proposal calls for a $150 per household charge that would be added to their property tax bill next year which could generate about $5 million in a six-month period next year.

But Commissioner Gregg Goslin wants a better explanation about the costs of providing these services and who is getting them.

“We have no figures, no numbers, no plan for how to do this — and I have some serious reservations about it.”

Goslin and Schneider say their constituents could argue they already pay for services they never use.

“People in suburban areas could say they are paying for a hospital and [county] court system they don’t use,” he said, referring to the county’s health and hospital system providing free or discounted healthcare for the poor and uninsured. “It needs to be ironed out.”

Preckwinkle agrees there is an “unevenness in the use of county resources and services.”

“All of us in the city pay for the forest preserves, but it’s I think it’s fair to say that residents of Cook County in the suburbs, where most of the forest preserves are located, have better access to them and are able to use them,” she said. “There’s an inevitable unevenness in the use of county resources and services, but I think everybody should pay their fair share.”