Mayor Dave Schmidt has already talked about the need for the City to begin work on the 2010-11 budget.  He also has publicly vowed to veto a budget that isn’t balanced – or that is “balanced” by deceptive public fund accounting tricks.

So we noted with interest the report in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune that Naperville is trying to close an $11 million budget deficit this year by eliminating 49 jobs to save $3.6 million a year (“Naperville cuts 22 employees, won’t fill 27 vacant positions,” Jan. 9).  These latest cuts come on the heels of Naperville’s elimination of 43 other positions a year ago.

Park Ridge’s budget deficit for the current fiscal year is “only” a little over $2 million, but so far City government has only cut 4 jobs even as the City has operated irresponsibly for the past several years by not raising its approximately 10% share of our property tax bills to cover all those expenses it refuses to cut, or even increases – as it demonstrated by reacting to the current $2 million-plus deficit budget by increasing the cash the City gives away to private community organizations that have come to expect annual handouts of tax dollars to make up for what they can’t or won’t raise on their own.

Schmidt talked a good game several weeks ago when he proposed that the City adopt some form of zero-based budgeting (“ZBB”) requiring the City’s various departments to take a fresh, square-one look at: (a) what they currently do and should be doing (only, perhaps, better and more efficiently); (b) what they currently don’t do, but should be doing; and (c) what they currently do but should not be doing.  The lack of enthusiasm from a majority of the City Council and City Staff, however, combined with the departure of Finance Director Diane Lembesis, quickly turned ZBB into a “wait ‘til next year” idea, if then.

With the State of Illinois trailing only California in the race to bankruptcy, we can’t expect much in the way of financial assistance from Springfield.  To the contrary, as a community we’ll be lucky if we don’t start hearing more howling from our local schools because today’s Tribune reports that the state owes local school districts $1 billion that it cannot pay – to go along with the $775 million it owes universities and community colleges, and the $478 million it owes various municipalities.

Last May we suggested a variety of ways for the City to balance its 2009-10 budget which were ignored, leaving the $2 million+ deficit untouched.  And there was nothing in that budget for things like flood relief, O’Hare noise monitoring, and other expenditures that a number of Park Ridge residents consider vital – at least to themselves.

There are no attractive options available at this juncture, especially with a City government that has refused to even own up to its financial problems and embrace such common-sense solutions as passing through to water users 100% of the cost of the water the City purchases from Chicago, or cutting handouts to private organizations over which the taxpayers have no control.

These are precarious financial times, folks.  Unfortunately, unrealistic expectations combined with financial mismanagement over the past several years have put us in a situation that will be difficult and painful to properly resolve – even with that billboards “snake oil” Ald. Jim “Billboards” Allegretti and his colleague Frank DiFranco are trying to peddle.