Tax Relief? Repeal the Entire Stroger Sales Tax Hike
The Chicago Tribune reports about how some on the county board are trumpeting the “tax relief” provided when they (spurred by Commissioner Peraica) shaved half a percentage point off the massive sales tax increase pushed by Todd Stroger in 2008.
Calling that minute, half-percentage point reduction “tax relief” is an insult to the taxpayers of Cook County — who deserve nothign less than a full repeal of the Stroger tax hike.
Commissioner Peraica is quoted in the Tribune:
“In my mind, it was just a partial rollback of an ill-advised tax increase,” said Commissioner Tony Peraica, R-Riverside, who voted against the original increase. “I wanted the whole increase rolled back.”
Todd’s $6.7 Million ‘Human Error’
It’s not that Todd doesn’t know the rules. Apparently he just doesn’t care about them.
Why else — after being reprimanded by both the Chicago media and the County Board — would he go ahead and approve yet another questionable taxpayer-funded contract to a crony?
The Daily Herald reports:
Cook County Board President Todd Stroger’s administration acknowledged Wednesday that 25 checks worth more than $6.7 million were paid out before receiving the required board approval.
Stroger attributed the “mistake” to “human error,” calling it “more of an issue of you pressed a button when you shouldn’t have done it.” He asked for tolerance, saying, “This is not time to pull someone over the rails.”
Yet, Riverside Republican Commissioner Tony Peraica said some of the checks were as large as $700,000 and pointed to it as a dramatic escalation of the so-called 24-9 contracts - payments just under the $25,000 figure requiring board approval - that Stroger handed out as a lame duck after losing in the Democratic Primary earlier this year. “The ship is not being steered,” Peraica said. “The management is not managing.”
$6.7 million worth of “human error.” Commissioner Peraica is right that the ship isn’t being steered. In fact, it hit the iceberg a long time ago.
And county taxpayers are left treading water.
Today’s Taxing News: Tax Collections Down; Out-of-Town Visitors Getting Whacked
There were two tidbits in today’s headlines that further support my push to fully repeal the Stroger sales tax hike in Cook County.
First, despite rising taxes and fees, tax collections are actually down in the state (again). As the Champaign News-Gazette reports, overall state tax collections are down 9.5% in July.
The reason for this decline? Simple: people are out of work. When they are out of work, their incomes drop (obviously). That leads to a drop in income tax revenues. They also consume less, which leads to a drop in sales taxes. It is for that reason that increasing the income tax and keeping sales taxes high will only further decimate our economy.
If government takes more of the people’s money, it will only cause them to suffer more and spend less. For those individuals who are small business owners, that will also affect job creation.
Pat Quinn and Todd Stroger are wrong: we need less, not more, taxes.
That coincides with another story today that shows that “Chicago is the worst tax city for travelers.” USA Today reports on a new study by the National Business Travel Association:
The study looked at the 50 U.S. cities with the most air passengers. It found that a typical business traveler pays $101.27 in taxes on average for hotel, rental car and meals during a three-day, two-night stay in Chicago— more than in any other city.
So, in other words, our local politicians are doing their best to repel new visitors, tourists and conventioneers from our city. Once again, that won’t result in more tax revenue — it will result in further economic harm that will put our governments deeper in debt.
Not smart. Not smart at all.
NY Times: Cook County Health System Staff Reductions ‘Not Enough’
The New York Times reported on staff reductions at the Cook County Health and Hospital System — quoting Commissioner Peraica in their story:
Despite facing a $42 million shortfall in patient revenue, the Cook County Health and Hospitals System has laid off only 100 workers out of the 1,350 positions that administrators promised to eliminate this fiscal year.
A six-month status report shows 665 vacant positions and 335 filled positions that have been eliminated. But of the filled positions, only about 100 workers were actually laid off.
“I don’t understand how you’re going to make this up by the end of the fiscal year,” said Tony Peraica, a member of the Cook County Board.
Sunlight Disinfects: Stroger Axes Appointment of Crony
Last week, we put a spotlight on Todd Stroger’s plans to appoint a crony to the Zoning Board of Appeals.
It appears our efforts have worked, as Todd has decided to succumb to the pressure and “pull” his planned appointment.
A small, yet important, victory for the Cook County taxpayers.
Keep the Roaches Scurrying
If you’ve ever had a roach problem, you know that turning the light on causes the roaches to scurry and seemingly disappear.
Turn off the lights, however, and the roaches reappear.
So it is with the corrupt and inept in Cook County. Shining a spotlight on them sometimes has a short, temporary effect (either through firings or jail time), but as soon as the spotlight is turned off, the roaches reappear….
This morning’s Sun-Times provides a great example of why we need to keep the spotlight on Cook County corruption. And it’s a prime example of why we need to keep Tony Peraica serving on the Cook County board:
The Cook County Highway Department was poised to hire six new truck drivers in recent months — without giving applicants a behind-the-wheel driving test.
When county hiring monitors raised a red flag and began to investigate, one official said, they found three of the six finalists for the snow plow jobs hadn’t provided a driving record as required.
That’s despite letters of support for each candidate — authored by highway department bosses — noting that each applicant had a “good driving record,” said Mary Robinson, the Shakman compliance administrator charged with ensuring the county adheres to a federal court-ordered ban on political hiring.
After Robinson met with county officials, the hirings were nixed.
“It appeared some of the [job] candidates had political sponsors,” Robinson told the Sun-Times.
That’s one of several examples Robinson will provide in a report this week to a federal judge overseeing the Shakman consent decree. Robinson said some progress has been made, including ongoing work on an automated job application system.
But some county employees see the Shakman decree as a hurdle, not a court order.
“There are many people in the county who still feel all they have to do is get it past us, as opposed to changing how they do the hiring.”
Imagine that: the county insiders view the law as a hurdle to be crossed, rather than a rule to be followed.
We’ve got our work cut out for us, but we’ll keep on fighting and making a difference.
Wanna get rich? Work at Metra
Budget crunch? What budget crunch?
Economic crisis? What economic downturn?
It might be easy to see how many state and local government employees might be blind to the challenges facing most taxpayers in this down economy.
Earlier this week, we learned that Governor Quinn has been handing out hefty raises to members of his staff.
Todd Stroger has been on a hiring (and contract-giving) spree to his friends.
And, now the Sun-Times uncovers an apparent taxpayer-funded cash cow at Metra (and here we thought transportation was underfunded)….
Metra paid 151 employees more than $100,000 each last year, excluding health-care costs and Metra-funded retirement contributions. Of the commuter rail agency’s 40 top-paid workers, 15 belonged to labor unions. Philip Pagano, who was Metra’s executive director until taking his own life in the face of an internal Metra investigation, allowed several nonunion employees to trade sick days and vacation time for cash payments. Those buyout payments no longer are allowed.
Click here to see the full list of these employees.
Hmmmm…..
We thought the RTA was in nearing a “crisis point” on state funding (according to this February 2010 story).
And, didn’t the General Assembly just pass a sales tax hike specifically to bail out the RTA?
Apparently your money just went to pad the salaries of the nouveau rich who work at the government agency.
Another Week, Another Round of Questionable Stroger Contracts
It was only a matter of time.
Todd Stroger’s rein is up in November, but he’s spending his final months making sure friends and allies have their turn at the county tax till.
Today’s Chicago Sun-Times reports on more questionable Stroger contracts — including one to a firm owned by his Deputy Chief of Staff Carla Oglesby, who was at the center of a previously-reported questionable contract:
The Stroger administration now confirms the two contracts, totaling about $50,000, are among a dozen under investigation by the county’s ethics board and inspector general. The Cook County state’s attorney’s office also is investigating, law enforcement sources told the Sun-Times.
They include a public relations contract given to a company by the name of Urban Rapport for $24,975 “to build awareness of the department’s (Department of Environmental Control) energy and conservation program,” according to a letter written by Stroger’s Deputy Chief of Staff Carla Oglesby to green light the contract.
But a check of state and county records shows that Urban Rapport, run by convicted felon and hip-hop promoter Terrell “Shorty Capone” Harris, isn’t a registered businesses in Illinois — a requirement of businesses doing contract work for Cook County.
A similar contract to spread the word about the county’s green initiative was given to Arrei Management Inc., once owned by Stroger’s beleaguered chief of staff Oglesby and dissolved in 2008, state records show. Stroger already suspended Oglesby for signing off on a $24,975 contract for her private public relations firm — CGC Communications — in recent months.
It’s raining money for Todd’s friends in 2010.
Too bad that, while the rest of Cook County is suffering from rampant unemployment, Todd’s friends and allies are having no problems finding Cook County jobs in 2010.
The Curious Case of the Composting Rapper
Todd Stroger and his allies claim they’ve cut the budget “to the bone.”
They’ve justified their tax hikes by saying the county is in dire budget straights and they need more of your hard-earned tax dollars to keep government providing frontline services.
So then why did they provide a $24,795 contract to a rap music promoter as part of a “composting awareness” effort?
That’s right, as you can see from the Fox Chicago News segment below, a rap promoter named Terrell “Shorty Capone” Harris received his contract as part of a $10 million federal grant to promote environmental awareness. So, not only is Cook County wasting local tax dollars — taxpayers across the country can rest assured that Cook County is wasting theirs, as well.
Todd Serves Up Another Tasty Double-Dip
Filed under: Corruption, Reform, Spending, Taxes, Todd Stroger
The Cook County Board failed to override Todd Stroger’s veto of the board’s hiring freeze. So it appears Todd is going to continue to thumb his nose at the taxpayers by hiring cronies to sweetheart, taxpayer-funded county jobs.
The latest is Todd’s friend, State Rep. Art Turner. You see, he makes more than $87,000 per year as a state legislator.
But now, thanks to Todd Stroger, Turner will also make a $110,575 salary as the director of the county’s President’s Office of Employment and Training (POET) .
Two salaries. Both paid for by the taxpayers. A tasty double-dip.
And Turner will be overseeing a department that has already been the source of much controversy. As the Sun-Times reports:
(POET) has been besieged by by criticism of mismanagement of grant funds, most recently by the presidents of several south and southwest suburban colleges.
“POET’s inability to properly administer … grant funds has cost our Dislocated Worker, Adult and Youth Programs significantly in the past five years,” George Dammer, President of South Suburban College wrote in a letter to Cook County Commissioners.
In a Monday e-mail, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity confirms that POET had to return $8.4 million in grant money between 2003 and 2008 — dollars that could have helped a County whose unemployment rate has hovered between 10 and 11 percent
The job-training program, serving 16- to 24-year-olds in the south and west suburbs, has also been the target of criminal investigations.
Its former financial manager was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to stealing more than $100,000 from the program.
And in 2008, three former POET employees were charged with conspiring with two ministers to siphon more than $2 million from banks and taxpayers for sham training, prosecutors said.
Turner will be on the job for six months, until Stroger’s term expires and a new County Board President takes office. Can he turn around this beleagured program before then?
Perhaps. But we know for certain he’ll cash in at your expense during that time period.
And Todd Stroger can dutifully claim he created good-paying jobs …. among his friends and relatives, that is.
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