The Mayor's Budget Plans

Mayor Lori Lightfoot wants to use up to half of Chicago’s $1.9 billion in federal COVID relief money to pay down debt in her FY2022 budget presented September 15, but “it’s not ‘either/or;’ it’s got to be both,” she said about using the money in underserved neighborhoods.

An opposing plan is the “Right to Recovery” ordinance that would use all the American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds for reopening mental health clinics, crisis response services, homelessness assistance, and more. The proposed ordinance is supported by 13 members of the 50-member Chicago City Council. (See pages 10 and 11.)

Mayor Lori Lightfoot mixes with participants at the public empowerment forum on the FY2022 budget at Truman College.

Courtesy of Suzanne Hanney

“You could allow this ordinance out of [the] Rules [Committee], call it for a vote,” Caitlin Brady, spokesperson for the Right to Recovery coalition, yelled at Lightfoot during a public empowerment forum August 12 at Truman College. “There is nothing at all that is requiring her to roll this money into the budget process,” Brady said afterward. “And in my mind, it is evil to be sitting on $1.9 billion while people are facing evictions, facing utility shutoffs and being forced back to work without childcare.”

Lightfoot responded to Brady that, “there is a budget process.” At both the public meeting and a press briefing August 11, Lightfoot said that she doesn’t want to spend the ARP money all at once, “because this is a once-in-a-generation amount of money for a once-in-a generation crisis…to spend every penny of these ARP funds without any regard for the long-term fiscal consequences would be utterly irresponsible, ineffective, and leave us with nothing if, God forbid, another crisis strikes our city.”

Besides dealing with persistent budget shortfalls and pension fund demands, Lightfoot said she “recognizes the real hurt in our community,” and that “when we spend the money, it has to be in ways that are catalytic, not just for this season, but for years to come.”

Lightfoot presented her case during both the media briefing and the public engagement forum that she has already made catalytic investments to help underserved communities. She cited her INVEST South/West initiative, which will coalesce $750 million in public funding along with corporate, community and philanthropic investors over the next three years to build 12 commercial corridors, affordable housing and streetscapes in: Austin, Auburn-Gresham, Bronzeville, Greater Englewood, New City, North Lawndale, Humboldt Park, Greater Roseland, South Chicago and South Shore.

Her five-year, $3.7 billion capital plan, she said, will allow the city to repair roads, bridges and tunnels over multiple construction seasons, “instead of lurching from year to year without a plan.” Simultaneously, the project is bringing goodpaying union jobs.

However, the Chicago Sun-Times said in November that borrowing for the plan will be paid by tax increment financing, a bond issue backed by property tax and/or sales taxes and interim financing in anticipation of future state and federal funding. Civic Federation President Laurence Msall questioned how the city could take on the additional debt without a new source of revenue.

Since September 2020, the city has also used $35 million in CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security) Act funding and $1.3 million from Chicago funders to rapidly rehouse 1,000 individuals.

Lightfoot’s administration also became the first to invest in anti-violence initiatives, Norman Kerr, director of the Mayor’s Office of Violence Reduction, said during the public empowerment forum. The $50.8 million allocation includes:

• violence interruption programs for individuals at the highest risk of violence, services for victims, coordination of services for residents returning from prison;

• legal and counseling services for families impacted by domestic violence;

• capacity building for mom and pop community-based organizations;

• place-based interventions such as the West Garfield Plaza and Roller Rink;

• non-law enforcement response for individuals experiencing a mental health crisis;

• youth violence reduction for those at highest risk in the form of “choose to change” programs and summer jobs.

Meanwhile, the $60.6 million mental health budget of the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) includes $8.5 million for 32 programs that expand trauma-informed services to youth, adults and families in 34 high-need communities, regardless of ability to pay. CDPH has also invested in its five mental health clinics to extend hours, launch a child and adolescent services program and a telehealth program that delivered 17,000 units of service during the pandemic.

The Department of Housing provided emergency rental assistance to 9,000 households impacted by COVID-19 and pledged $252 million for the creation and preservation of 5,800 affordable rental units. The Chicago City Council also passed a new Affordable Requirements Ordinance that expands requirements for developers downtown, in neighborhoods with little affordable housing, and in those with more than 20 percent displacement of low-income residents.

David Zverow of Rogers Park tells Mayor Lightfoot that affordable housing is a critical need. His clients are mostly refugees who spend 75 to nearly 100 percent of their money on housing, so that they must go to food pantries.

Courtesy of Suzanne Hanney

Lightfoot said her priorities for the upcoming budget will be continued resources to connect residents to the CO- VID-19 vaccine and to health care. Budget outreach earlier this summer also showed her that people want to feel safe and be safe.

Police funding will increase to provide resources to recruit the next generation of police officers from across the nation and across Chicago in a way that reflects the city’s diversity. Two pilot programs have similarities to the “Treatment, Not Trauma” ordinance proposed by progressive members of the Chicago City Council. Clinicians would lead, with police support, in one program. Clinicians and experts on opioids would work without police assistance in another pilot led by CDPH.

Lightfoot promised to “disrupt the root causes of violence” that lead people to bad situations.

“We have to give them a different set of values, different opportunities, so that they do not feel their destiny is ordained,” she said about youth when she sat down at a table during the public forum. “People that have no hope don’t fear anything because they don’t feel their life matters.

We’ve gotta help families.” Pastor Alvin Richards of West Englewood, who was at the table and who has worked with the mayor, added “she wants to give them hope from birth, which I thought was very powerful.”

Youth funding, mental health services and violence prevention were on most people’s agendas at the forum, so police would have to be reduced from its current 40 percent of the budget in order to fit it all in, said John Cruz-Barcenas during the public comment period.

“We simply cannot keep doing what we’ve been doing because it doesn’t work.” Barcenas advocated the Peacebook ordinance promoted by Good Kids Mad City, which would provide a resource directory of wraparound services and jobs to reduce youth incarceration. He also called for the “Treatment, Not Trauma” ordinance and for a nurse, librarian and counselor at every Chicago Public School (CPS, which has a separate budget). He said Malcolm X had encouraged students of government to come up with ideas because, “we are discouraged with the old, established politicians. We want new, more militant faces.”

“Well, mayor, the new, more militant faces are here. We’ve done our study, done our analysis and these are our suggestions. Whether you choose to listen to them will be yours and your administration’s legacy.”

John Cruz-Barcenas calls for a resource directory of alternatives to youth violence and the “Treatment, Not Trauma” mental health alternatives to police response ordinance.

Courtesy of Suzanne Hanney