Chicago will not be forced to wean itself off what one mayoral critic called a “debt addiction” that has saddled beleaguered taxpayers with the second-highest level of debt per citizen of any big city in the nation.
After a heated debate, the City Council’s sharply divided Finance Committee agreed Monday not to raise the threshold for approving city borrowing from a simple majority, or 26 votes, to a two-thirds majority, or 34 votes. That would have allowed 17 members to block future borrowing.
The vote was 17-16.
Even though Johnson managed to avoid a political defeat by the narrowest of margins, it was a message loud and clear that the upcoming budget season, with its $1 billion-plus shortfall, could make last year’s marathon stalemate look like a piece of cake.
Budget Committee Chair Jason Ervin (28th) helped Johnson by reiterating the argument made last week by senior mayoral adviser Jason Lee: that allowing a potential 17-member coalition to block bond ordinances for critical infrastructure for whatever reason would only lead to gridlock and potentially harmful delays on critical investments that the city needs to make to preserve roads, bridges and other aging infrastructure.
“Essentially what this ordinance would do is empower a small group of people to hold everybody else hostage,” Ervin said. “This is not designed to help us. It’s designed to empower a very small group of people that seem to be hell-bent on driving us over a cliff.”
Ervin accused his colleagues of hypocrisy. He said the “bulk of the debt that the city has on its books” is tied to the $35.8 billion pension crisis.
“Many of the people that are advocating for this change didn’t make pension contributions, didn’t do what was fiscally responsible then, and now have had an epiphany that now we need to move beyond a simple majority to a super-majority, which basically puts the minority in control,” Ervin said. “If changes need to be made on how debt and things are done, those changes need to be done at the state Legislature because this is the rule by which everybody else in the state of Illinois” operates.
Finance Chair Pat Dowell (3rd) has had her differences with the Johnson administration, most recently on the mayor’s plan for green social housing. But she said she cast one of the 17 votes not to raise the threshold to approve borrowing, in part, because 13th Ward Ald. Marty Quinn’s ordinance had a clause that said it could not be rescinded or amended.
“When have we ever done that? We’re basically casting something in stone, and we’re never gonna have an opportunity to revisit or look at it. I have a problem with that,” Dowell said.
Dowell accused her colleagues of “putting the cart before the horse.”
All of the other major cities that have higher borrowing thresholds or require voter referendums to authorize bond issues have city charters.
“We do not. If we want to spend our time and pursue a city charter, so be it. That’s another discussion. But, we should not start legislating as if we have one,” Dowell said.
Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), one of the mayor’s most outspoken Council critics, countered that allowing a simple majority to authorize borrowings would tie the mayor’s hands in a way that will serve Chicago taxpayers.
“Having to govern for a [super] majority — that’s gonna take away the horse-trading of promising extra streets and sidewalks and extra parks in order to buy votes,” Beale said.
Southwest Side Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th) agreed with chief sponsor Quinn that there is “not enough real honest communication … between elected officials and this administration” and that raising the threshold for approving future borrowing would level the playing field.
“If we communicate with one another, and information is provided to us, then we can make difficult decisions on important financial issues moving forward. But if we keep doing what’s been happening here these past few years — folks, we’re leaving a real mess for our children,” O’Shea said.
Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) said that there has been talk of borrowing even more money to pay for the $143 million that the Council has either already authorized for settlements tied to allegations of police wrongdoing and the $335.6 million added to the pile during Monday’s Finance Committee meeting.
“The only way we can get off this debt addiction is to put caps on how easy it is to get to this point,” Lopez said.