As of 12:34 p.m., Thursday, the battle is engaged.
It’s framed very simply: Cut expenses (including but not limited to people, pensions, payroll, benefits) to match revenue; re-allocate existing resources to critical issues like education and infrastructure; and, hope tax revenue declines slow down so there’s no need for a tax increase.
Just after the chicken and mashed potatoes at the annual “mayor’s business speech” before the Rockford Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Larry Morrissey laid out a no-holds-barred action plan for investing in the city’s priorities and critical needs — and for paying for it out of the current and future pockets of city employees, with an emphasis on union contracts.
Our community can no longer afford us, the mayor told about 500 of the region’s corporate, business and governmental decision makers. The “us” is clearly the police and fire unions, whose contracts are open and whose position continues to be: nope, we’re not budging very much.
Make no mistake, the “us” will also include teachers, legislators, court officials, county and township employees; indeed, everyone who gets a paycheck from the government. Morrissey flipped through slide after slide showing the escalating costs and declining revenues, and he offered no hope that the city’s checkbook prospects would get much better for a long, long time.
“When you leave here today,” he quipped and I paraphrase slightly, “you might want to make sure you have someone with you so you can talk through all this. It’s depressing.”
Morrissey pushed hard on state legislators to change state pension laws so that a tiered system could prevent pension meltdowns just a few years down the road. Without changes in legislation, local government pension costs will outstrip revenues — and local governments, which must balance their budgets, are at the mercy of cowardly state politicians, including the Gov. Quinn, who refuse to take on the tiered pensions.
Nothing the mayor said should come as a surprise, though it’s the first time I have heard him publicly sound the alarm. Having talked with him over the past months, I’ve known those were his concerns. I share them, as does the Register Star Editorial Board.
But, this “lay-it-on-the-line,” public record speech minced no words: Our community can no longer afford us — and then he detailed just why that was.
There were a host of public employees in that room. I’d venture to say at least 25 percent: school district, park district, police, elected officials and probably others I didn’t recognize. They get those benefits, salaries and pensions (as does the mayor, of course). I suspect that the mayor’s message didn’t sit all that well for some.
I am not in the doom-and-gloom camp. I do believe that Rockford can first survive and then thrive coming out of this Great Recession. But we are definitely not going to make it until, or unless, we take the mayor at his word: cut expenses, reallocate revenue, hope for a turnaround to avoid new taxes.
That’s a message a taxpayer should love.
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City government’s MISSION, the reason it exists,is to serve the public interest. Public Safety and Public Works are the ESSENTIALS taxpayers deserve and expect.
Our mayor avoided one major problem facing Rockford, perhaps because it is of HIS own making. The absolute explosion in TIF districts since his first election has catered to “developers” not citizens.
This administration has chosen to focus on “development” and as such,has tied up MILLIONS in bond debt to finance developer’s WANTS and, at the same time, cost the city,park district,schools,county,etc.,etc. perhaps hundreds of thousands of property tax dollars with the same said TIF districts….
(And the worst part?
http://www.riversideinfo.org/wp-content/uploads/tif-districts-hinder-growth.pdf
“… Do TIF
districts work—that
is, do they spur
economic growth?
Our analysis of 235
municipalities in the
metropolitan Chicago
region finds cities,
towns, and villages
that had TIF districts
actually grew more
slowly than
municipalities that did
not use TIF…..
Because all local governments and their
residents are affected by the consequences of
municipal TIF districts, the results of this study
suggest that state and local policymakers should
revisit the issue of TIF districts as economic
development tools and the question of whether
school districts and other local governments
should also have authoritative roles in the
decision to create TIF districts.
Pensions, benefits and retirement age of union employees MUST be dealt with. It dwarfs all other financial issues by sheer magnitude. If not dealt with on all levels, federal, state and local, it will make the current economic situation look likea walk in the park.
Make no mistake. The continued rants about TIF’s, MetroCentre, riverwalks (though concerns may be raised on a much smaller scale)are rendered irrelevant by the size of the pension costs. The problem cannot even be remotely solved by eliminating $1 or 2 million in infrastructure improvements.
The Mayor deserves huge applause for correctly identifying the monumental challenge ahead of us and boldly making every effort to solve it before catastrophy.
Way to IGNORE the true issue(the PURPOSE of City Government)and stay on Larry’s Message….most pension,retirement issues are STATE-MANDATED…Larry’s ONLY message is “bust the unions” for developers’ sake.
Not so, unmanager. The mayor spent a significant amount of time explaining the state laws and mandates regarding pensions, the effects of those mandates on local governments (not just Rockford) and on the need for legislators and the governor to address the state mandates. He did not single out unions on that subject.
But you do that for him. Don\’t you, Linda?
How many people have to do a difficult (physically and emotionally) job, dealing with the worst in society day after day, and for their effort, die 10 years younger than the average? I agree with unmanager – We’re mortgaging what we should be paying for with putting money in the mayor’s (and his friend’s and family’s) pockets. From what I remember from my junior high social studies class, government exists to serve ALL people, not just those that are looked upon with favor.
I would ask you Linda and the editorial board of the newspaper what you would propose to solve the pension problem not only in the city but the state as well. It is easy to complain that there is a problem what is the solution?