Mike Quigley, Cook County Commissioner, 10th District

Cook County Budget Battle Continues; Disputes Threaten to Force County to Miss Friday's Deadline

WGN Radio

February 28, 2008

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger isn't giving up his efforts to raise sales taxes. Stroger called a meeting Thursday night for county commissioners to once again consider his plan to raise the county sales tax by one-and-a-quarter percent.

Stroger told commissioners their job was to take his proposal and decide what to do with it. The tension over the lack of a Cook County budget deal as a midnight Friday deadline looms resulted in tempers boiling over Thursday afternoon when Stroger and Commissioner Mike Quigley yelled at each other as a marathon meeting continued.

"Undermining the government is what you are doing," Stroger said to Quigley, a frequent critic. "I don't care if Commissioner Quigley likes what's going on or not, it makes it harder for us to work together."

"You don't have the guts to compromise this year," Quigley responded, noting he went along with last year's budget compromise that broke a similar logjam. The exchange came after Quigley accused Stroger and his supporters of not being "real" or "sincere" in their efforts to come up with a compromise to close a budget shortfall the Stroger administration now pegs at $226 million.

Commissioners this week have narrowed that gap by about $57 million by voting to increase court fees and modifying revenue and spending projections. Stroger also told commissioners Thursday he has done his job by proposing a spending plan, and it's now up to them to vote it up or down or come to some other resolution.

"You must do this to fulfill your obligation to the county," he said. "I cannot do it for you."

Commissioners Roberto Maldonado and Larry Suffredin both say they could support a quarter-percent increase in the sales tax, given certain conditions, but they said they have not worked out a deal with Stroger. Each quarter percent increase in the sales tax would raise about $106 million a year.

Maldonado has said he would like Stroger to back his package of four new taxes and a tax increase that he estimates would raise $95 million this year, in what's left of fiscal 2008, and Suffredin wants Stroger to agree to a quick turnover of the Bureau of Health Services to a separate, professional governing board.

Maldonado's tax package includes extending the county gas tax to jet fuel, charging $100 on the purchase of vehicles that weigh more than 3,300 pounds, boosting the retail tax on cars and boats, imposing a 1.5 percent tax on alcoholic drinks at bars and restaurants and enacting a 1 percent hotel tax.

Stroger said Wednesday he is standing firm on his sales-tax proposal, noting he already revised it downward. He said it would keep the county solvent for years to come and contends his critics and potential political rivals don't want that to occur because it would allow him to avoid seeking a tax increase in the 2010 election year.

Stroger's critics accuse him of intentionally creating a crisis to build support for his proposal when the budget gap could be closed with a relatively modest set of cuts, tax or fee increases revenue enhancements, debt refinancing and reforms. Stroger has warned that parts of the government could shut down if a budget isn't passed by Friday night, and he has said the kind of cuts needed without approval of his tax increase would decimate public health-care services and severely slow the criminal-justice system.

Stroger also has refused to withdraw any of the more than 1,100 new hires he has called for. The deadline for the county board to pass a new budget is Friday at midnight.

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