A few months ago, when the City Council was putting together its 2010-11 budget, Mayor Dave Schmidt warned about the financial risks to the City of expecting a continuation of tax dollars from the State of Illinois.  He asked City Mgr. Jim Hock and the Council to come up with some contingency cuts in anticipation of some or all of that State money not coming in, or not coming in when needed. 

Despite warnings from both State Sen. Dan Kotowski (D) and State Rep. Rosemary Mulligan (R) that Governor Quinn was serious about cutting money to municipalities, and despite the State already being months behind in its income tax revenue sharing with Park Ridge (and other municipalities around the State) for 2010, Hock and a majority of the City Council chose to ignore that issue, with Hock suggesting the City could wait until we saw what the situation was in July.

Well, it’s now July 19th, and we still don’t have any more of that State income tax revenue – nor is the State giving us any clear assurances of when, or even if, it will show up. 

Under such uncertain circumstances, we would expect that sound money management would dictate that Hock and the Council would have begun discussing specific additional cuts that cut be implemented if State funding remains delayed.  But according to Hock (as reported in the latest issue of the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate): “It’s not fruitful to discuss what you might cut and then try to lobby your legislators and say, ‘We need this money.’”

Gee, Jim, is it “fruitful” to sit on your hands and continue to spend money the City doesn’t have, as if the State cash is already on its way from Springfield?  Is it “fruitful” to put the City at increasing risk of a full-blown finanical crisis?

Not surprisingly, Hock’s comments come just as the City Council is preparing to finalize the release of one-half of the $190,000 of taxypayer-funded handouts to the various private community groups who claim they provide “essential” services to the community – services which those organizations have consistenly failed (or refused) to document as specifically going to Park Ridge residents, and at what cost. 

At the last COW meeting Hock acknowledged that the City has laid off approximately 27 employees over the past 2 years purely for financial reasons.  Four of those employees were police officers laid off just this year.  Two of those police officers could have been retained for just a shade more than that $190,000 being given away to those community groups.  

So when a Council majority (we’re betting it’s made up of Alds. Allegretti, Bach, Carey, DiPietro and Ryan) votes tonight to approve the immediate payment of 50% of the amounts budgeted for the community groups – $95,000, or about the cost of one cop – rather than waiting until more State funding comes in and seeing whether (and by how much?) the City has overspent its revenues during the first quarter of the new budget year, they will be sending a clear and unequivocal message to the taxpayers:

All of those community organizations are more important to them than whatever security was formerly provided by 2 police officers, and more important than the various City services that have been eliminated or reduced.

Update (07.20.10)  Despite the presence of representatives from several of the community groups looking for their annual handouts, a decision was deferred to the August City Council meeting at the request of two aldermen (believed to be Alds. Allegretti and Bach), presumably because Alds. Carey and Ryan were absent.