Stroger cuts $50 M from 2006 budget

Daily Southtown

November 2, 2005

By Jonathan Lipman

Facing a county board unwilling to pass tax increases, County Board President John Stroger announced Tuesday he's already found $50 million to cut from the 2006 budget.

It brings the expected 2006 budget deficit to $250 million. Stroger gave no indication he's backing away from the property tax increase he has been hinting at for weeks.

Commissioners who say new taxes are not needed are "big liars," said Stroger (D-Chicago).

Although the county's fiscal year ends this month, Stroger has no timetable on when he plans to introduce his 2006 budget. But he said he's already found cuts based on talks with staff and elected officials.

Unions are in negotiations with the county and Stroger said he will also demand a bigger employee contribution for health care.

Commissioner Mike Quigley chastised Stroger for delaying the budget, telling him he did not have the votes needed to pass a tax increase and he should not try.

"We're playing a very dangerous game, these are people's lives," said Quigley (D-Chicago).

Stroger continued to portray the budget battle as a fight over the fate of poor minorities who use county services. He rebuked Commissioner Bobbie Steele (D-Chicago), who is black, for her announcement Monday that she would not support a property tax increase.

"I'm surprised at some of the black commissioners, who have people who need health care and other services that we provide," Stroger said. "I don't play politics with poor people's lives."

Steele said Monday she opposed a tax increase because the county hospitals weren't doing enough to collect payment from patients who have insurance. Other commissioners echoed her views Tuesday.

County health chief Daniel Winship said new procedures and computer accounting systems will soon be installed to improve billing.

Winship could not put a dollar figure on the county's unpaid hospital bills, but said it was "significant" and that better collection "would help our situation dramatically."

Steele said she heard nothing Tuesday to change her mind and was even more upset after learning at the meeting that staff at Oak Forest Hospital do not even ask patients for their Social Security numbers, usually the first step in a billing process.

Oak Forest Hospital's acting CEO, Sylvia Edwards, said that policy was started so that undocumented immigrants wouldn't be afraid to use hospital services. The hospital will start asking for those numbers once its new billing system is in place.

Copyright 2005, Daily Southtown

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