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Unclear on budgetary concepts

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Illinois

Aside from the tens of millions of dollars for housing migrants, the state budget has $550 million in taxpayer subsidies for the health care of migrants over 65.

Um, no. That healthcare spending line is only for undocumented immigrants and it’s only for those who are 42 and older. Asylum-seekers are not undocumented. They’re covered under a different program that qualifies for federal matching funds.

* Meanwhile, this is from a recent Sun-Times editorial…

The Johnson administration is now spending $40 million a month on the migrant emergency — which, in its defense, is not a crisis of its own making. Still, migrants have been arriving by the busload since August 2022, and every candidate for mayor surely knew his or her administration would have to deal with the growing emergency. […]

At the current spending clip, the $150 million budgeted for the entire year will evaporate in a little less than four months.

The city’s budget is also “balanced” by using one-time revenue of $786.5 million, the editorial board noted. One-time revenue is fine, as long as it’s only used for one-time expenditures.

* From a new BGA report…

A proposed extension of Chicago’s collective bargaining agreement with the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 would cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars over a three-and-a-half-year period – and would include the largest set of city employee raises in Chicago’s recent history.

The potential deal, announced by Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration in late October, would update and extend the city’s contract with its rank-and-file police officers. […]

Johnson’s proposal includes a 5% salary bump for FOP-represented police in 2024 and 2025, up from the 2.5% and 2% raises for those years that were agreed upon in the Lightfoot administration’s extension. A larger raise for 2024 was not included in the roughly $2 billion appropriation for the police department passed by City Council earlier this month, meaning approval of a contract with Johnson’s proposed terms would immediately put the city approximately $27.7 million over budget for 2024.

So, he finalized the contract weeks before the budget was approved, but didn’t include the added costs into the budget?

Yes, it’s a small amount in relation to the size of the overall budget, but the city is currently scrambling like mad to find change under its couch cushions to deal with the aslym-seekers, so every single dollar matters.

Revelations like these really make me wonder what other deficits are buried in the city’s budget.

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Nov 30, 23 @ 12:58 pm

Comments

It’s another day and another self-inflicted wound from Brandon and the 5th floor. Maybe if his City Council allies would help him Govern instead of focusing on trying to grab more power or only dealing with Palestine/Israel he could have more success than constant mistakes.
They’ll tout their social wins and ballot initiative but where are the results these all work?

Comment by Frida's boss Thursday, Nov 30, 23 @ 1:29 pm
The Johnson admin is going to have to answer some serious questions when people dig into the budget and find the appropriations to small non-violence not for profits that Black alders asked for in the weekend of the CRR fiasco. Black alders threatened to vote no on the budget and as a last minute effort to save face and without an IGA director at the time… the Johnson team said yes to all their requests.

Yes it is how the sausage is made. But this admin is not transparent and does not communicate. The city deserves better.

Comment by Let Old Friends Go Thursday, Nov 30, 23 @ 1:31 pm
Johnson’s administration is running as well as a out-of-time engine with the wrong oil in it. Is he taking lessons by correspondence course from LL at Harvard?

Comment by thisjustinagain Thursday, Nov 30, 23 @ 2:15 pm