Board eyes budget cuts after Stroger shuns smaller tax hike

Chicago Sun-Times

February 28, 2008

By Steve Patterson

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger is unwilling to budge from his demand to raise the county sales tax 167 percent and is preparing to see county government shut down.

A majority of the County Board is willing to pass a series of smaller tax packages, but those commissioners are also demanding Stroger scale back his tax and spending plans.

Stroger said Wednesday that's not happening.

It's all building toward a midnight Friday deadline, and officials say Stroger is already making plans to seek a court order to continue operating the government without an approved budget -- even though Stroger says that would leave "a black mark on the County Board."

But dumbfounded commissioners insist Stroger can balance the budget if he'd simply get away from his stance that it's a big sales tax increase or nothing -- a tax increase that would eventually give him far more funds than the county needs.

Yet there's a greater strategy at play in seeking the large sales tax increase.

Commissioner John Daley conceded Wednesday that part of the big-tax strategy is so Stroger can avoid having to come back for tax hikes again in 2009 and 2010 --which is the year Stroger is up for re-election.

Stroger's allies are concerned that the politically vulnerable Stroger would be weakened if he's repeatedly asking for tax hikes.

Commissioners, though, are unwilling to give him any more than he needs to balance this year's budget.

So with no movement by Stroger and a majority of the board unwilling to grant him authority to raise the county sales tax from .75 percent to 2 percent, commissioners tabled any further tax talk until today.

They spent Wednesday night poring through a series of cuts --showing the deep division in the 17-member board.

One sign of the division was shown in a 9-8 vote to give commissioners an extra $60,000 for office staff, rather than shifting the money to a program that provides women with mammograms at county health centers.

Copyright 2008, Digital Chicago, Inc.

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