From Paul Vallas

We're told this was copied from his social media page - it seems to check out:

• MERRY CHRISTMAS CHICAGO, YOU’RE ABOUT TO GET “THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON TAKING”, AN AUTOMATIC ANNUAL PROPERTY TAX INCREASE “FOREVER”.

  So, the Finance Committee has passed the mayor’s proposed budget that includes an automatic annual property tax increase, without future City Council approval. The automatic tax increase will be five percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less. This does not prevent the mayor from going to the city council for an even greater increase. Chicago will almost certainly need that in the future, given that 80 percent of Lightfoot's budget is balanced by borrowing, unspecified “efficiencies,” and yet-to-be negotiated contract savings. And don’t forget the city’s unresolved pension funding issues.

  Taxpayers would be wise to recall the impact automatic cost-of-living adjustments (COLA’s) have had on pension systems and on property taxes, if they aren’t already frightened at the thought of the city indexing their property taxes. Memo to the fearful: the mayor has described her property tax proposal as a demonstration of leadership. Far from it. It’s a politically clever proposal to increase property taxes every year for eternity or until hell freezes over. Clever, because it’s a way to get out of having future property tax debates, especially in the proposal’s second year, when it will be election season.

  The entire budget process has shown a lack of leadership. Deferring $926 million in debt payments due this year and next to future budgets and refusing to identify the so-called budget efficiencies or the yet-to-be negotiated contract savings that will supposedly save the city $430 million is not leadership. Caving in to the Chicago Teachers Union by giving CPS $187 million in Tax Increment Financing (TIF) surplus revenues that could have been used to help finance city employee pensions is not leadership. Chicago is already the only city in the state that picks up the employee share of its public school district's teacher pensions.

  Leadership would be directing the mayorly-controlled school board to use its own share of the TIF surplus (54 percent) to partially fund its own teacher pensions. That would allow the city to reduce its teacher pension contribution by the same amount and put those revenues into other underfunded city pension funds in dire need of them.

  The surplus windfall to the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is particularly cowardly considering the union’s uninterrupted recalcitrance to the reopening of school campuses to pre-school children and children with special needs. Those students, in particular, desperately need in person attention. How can more city funding for the schools can be justified when they are in their eighth month without in-school instruction.

  Further, CPS has been provided a historic record setting budget, despite seventeen straight years of reduced enrollment including almost 15,000 students lost just this year. And, CPS is likely to see a significant increase in federal support when the next federal COVID-19 stimulus package passes. Both Democrat and Republican proposals call for schools to receive more than five times the amount received in the CARES Act. In spite of all of that, Mayor Lightfoot is awarding $187 million in TIF surplus to the schools That is almost twice the Mayor’s proposed property tax increase!

  The proposed 2021 budget, like last year’s budget, is simply an attempt to buy time and political cover while hoping for another massive federal economic package. This places the City Council at a critical juncture. Cave in and pass it, knowing exactly what City Hall is up to. Or, exercise a “profile in courage,” reject it and demand a responsible budget, not dependent on any bailout. Biden is already calling on the Congress to pass the next aid package. When it arrives, treat it as a windfall and carefully strategize its use to improve the city’s long-term financial condition. This of course would require some real courage, not to mention vision and skill, and those, I am afraid, appear to be in short supply.

This guy should have been mayor. Or governor.