Off the books

Last week Chicago aldermen held a lengthy commemoration of former mayor Harold Washington, who died the day before Thanksgiving 20 years ago. Several praised Washington, universally known as Harold, for bringing accountability and transparency to the job. Even Mayor Daley, whom Washington defeated in 1983, said as much. “He brought openness to city government,” Daley said, as well as, “I want to thank him for restoring my father’s desk–he found it in the basement of City Hall.”

Then the council passed the 2008 budget.

In the previous few weeks, some aldermen had groused that they didn’t have enough time to scrutinize the budget before they had to vote on it. What none wanted to admit publicly is that the budget documents are, frankly, complicated and confusing. The line item sections of the budget–which show some detail about how taxpayer money is spent in each department–are organized by revenue stream rather than overall expenditures. This means that if you want to see, say, how many employees Streets & San will have next year and how much they’re being paid, you’d need to look several places and then add the numbers up on your own–even in the document labeled by the city as a “budget summary.”

To make matters more perplexing, some of the line items aren’t complete. For certain jobs, the number of positions is listed but not the pay rate. For others, such as laborer positions, the hourly rate is included in the budget but not the number of people who’ll be paid at that rate. “The following employees, as needed, are authorized to be employed when requested by the department head concerned and approved by the Budget Director,” reads the line item for a section of the Department of General Services.

As a result, the budget essentially hides dozens of jobs from public view.

The 2007 budget itemized 39.950 city jobs, most of them salaried, some hourly or seasonal. And as of last week, 39,796 people were on the city payroll, well under the budgeted figure. 

In several departments, though, the payroll included far more employees more than what was budgeted last year, from the mayor’s office (three unbudgeted positions) to City Council (119), from the Department of Fleet Management (124) to the office of Emergency Management (475). Among the hidden jobs are staffers for the City Council’s committees and labor positions that earn up to $41.55 an hour.

The budget passed by the council cut 104 positions from the mayor’s proposal. It’s unclear how many will remain on the payroll through budgeting magic.

Here’s how it worked out this year by department: