Budget Shortfalls Increase

Don't get used to all that new equipment that's been turning up in the Districts....oh wait, it hasn't been. And it won't be anytime soon it seems:

• Mayor Richard Daley's chief of staff today announced $9.2 million in spending cuts and warned that more city workers could be laid off.

  The city will try to save $6 million by making a 3 percent reduction in spending on "non-personnel costs like commodities, materials, supplies and services" across city government, said top Daley aide Paul Volpe.

  Another $3 million would be saved by renegotiating contracts with companies that provide services to the city.

And what's driving these further cuts?

• ...additional spending cuts will be needed because revenues are $50.5 million below projections made just a few months ago.

  The tax on real estate sales brought in only $3.5 million in January---$7.3 million below what the Daley administration was expecting to collect.

  Sales, income and cigarette tax collections also are coming in below the expectations that officials relied upon to balance the city's nearly $6 billion budget.

This is what happens when you have chronic mismanagement and base entire years worth of budgets on fantasy numbers that aren't based anywhere in economic reality. As predicted here and elsewhere, the increasing tax rates are driving city dwellers to shop in the suburbs and the suburban dwellers to surrounding counties and Indiana. We haven't bought gas or groceries in the City in meaningful quantities for years now. It's a few hundred bucks in our pockets during tough times and no contract.

Chicago continues to rot from within thanks to Shortshanks and his merry band of thieves. How about cutting some executive salaries - like someone who got hired for two jobs and is only doing one of them. And doing it badly.