In case you haven’t noticed, President Stroger has asked for a hike in the county sales tax from .75% to 2.75%. His new budget is out too and is based on the premise that the county can raise 800 million in tax hikes and fee increases. This premise may be a faulty one: with the mayor also asking for increases in fees and property taxes, it’s becoming obvious that many people have concerns over tax increases.
While the President’s budget has no layoffs for our department (260 Public Defender) all I can tell you at this point is that it doesn’t even come close to putting us at status quo ante. (Take a look four yourself.. it’s on the county website). And it’s no better for all the clinics that were closed – they stay closed. But we all know that the county needs more revenue.
The tax increase being sought by the President is even by his own admission more than is needed. While we need an increase in revenue, we should only ask for what we need.
In a recent letter form Henry Bayer, Executive Director of Council 31 and Roberta Lynch, Deputy Director, it was explained how the union has joined ‘with over seventy civic community and religious organizations” to call for an Emergency temporary trustee of the county hospital system. The idea being to eliminate political interference in hiring and contracting. Reform in this area would go hand-in-hand with a modest tax increase in order to ensure the level of services the citizens of this County deserve and expect.
Last January, the county board held public hearings that were well attended by this and other locals. We warned the committee about the thread bare budget our office was working on and heard the pleas of health care providers and others who were eliminated from the 2007 county budget. Public hearings are now scheduled again for the new budget and we need now more than ever to show up and be heard.
Check out the public hearing schedule, or for those unable to link:
- Wed 10/24/07 6:30 pm Oak Forest Hospital
- Fri 10/26/07 10:00 am County Building
- Tue 10/30/07 6:30 pm Skokie Courthouse
- Tue 11/6/07 6:30 pm Proviso East H.S.
The hearings will be before the finance committee chaired by John Daley and even though President Todd Stroger will not be in attendence, members of this local should be — to talk about real revenue and real reform.
