What is the Responsible Budget Ordinance?

The Grassroots Collaborative and allies are working to help address the enormous budget crisis facing Chicago.  The Responsible Budget Ordinance (RBO) will return in total hundreds of millions of dollars to our city budget, our schools, parks, and our libraries without laying-off workers, taxing working families, or privatizing any valuable city asset. The ordinance calls for a cumulative amount equal to 50% of all unused TIF funds in districts with balances over $5 million dollars to be declared surplus and returned to the original taxing bodies (City, schools, parks, libraries, County, etc). 

Why 20% is Not Enough.

Shortly after the introduction of RBO into City Council, Mayor Emanuel announced he would return 20% of unallocated TIF funds to the original taxing bodies. According to the Mayor, this would return $60 million back to the original taxing bodies.  $30 million would go back to CPS. United Airlines alone received over $30 million in TIF funds. What does that say about our priorities? It would be irresponsible to let these funds sit idle in TIF accounts while the City lays off teachers, cuts library hours, and park program fees rise.

 

Working families in Chicago cannot continue to bear the burden of the budget crisis while Chicago corporations continue to hold taxpayers hostage, demanding millions in subsidies while making skyrocketing profits.

How is the Responsible Budget Ordinance fair?

The majority of the surplus money to go back into the taxing bodies would likely come from downtown TIFs, which hold the largest amount of TIF money captive, which otherwise would have gone towards funding the taxing bodies and services that the entire city enjoys.

 The current TIF system is broken and benefits mostly affluent downtown residents at the expense of everyone else.  If you look at the patterns of TIF spending (see graph from Chicago Reader to the right), you begin to see a clearer picture.

Sending this money back to the taxing bodies would redistribute the concentration of downtown TIF money fairly to the institutions and services that all Chicagoans enjoy. It would also ameliorate our budget woes, which will disproportionately affect low-income minority communities. Cuts to public programs most hurt low-income minority communities that depend on them; and laying-off public employees further weakens neighborhoods at a time when they need greater investment, not devastating cuts.

 

What does this mean for TIFs in my ward?

This bill does not dictate where to take surplus TIF funds from- it only demands that a cumulative amount be declared and then returned. The cumulative amount to be returned will be calculated by adding up 50% of all unallocated funds in TIFs with over $5 million unallocated funds sitting in them. Based on the City’s 2011 TIF Projection reports, over 100 TIF districts would be excluded for being under the $5 million threshold.  Almost 60% of unallocated funds in eligible TIF districts sit in the top 20 largest TIFs, the majority of which are located near downtown.

The Grassroots Collaborative convenes New Chicago 2011, a broad and deep coalition of community organizations interested in moving a people's agenda forward around the upcoming Chicago elections. On December 14th, New Chicago 2011 hosted a mayoral candidate forum attended by 2500 grassroots leaders.

Who We Are

New Chicago 2011 is a city-wide coalition that draws from every side of Chicago, from Rogers Park to Roseland, from Austin to Logan Square to Little Village. We are everyday people who are fed up with business-as-usual and who are ready to demand a city administration that respects and represents all the people of this city. Our communities have common dreams and needs. United, we will create a vision for a new Chicago.

Communities across Illinois have been hit hard by the current economic crisis. Closing and vastly under-funded schools, shut down community health clinics, and more new families than ever applying for food stamps illustrate how working families have been hit throughout the state. The state faces an incredible $12.8 billion dollar deficit and this number continues to grow. Illinois ranks near the bottom of all states for equitable education funding. The convenient answer that more cuts are what is needed is in fact not a real solution for our children and their families.

The current fiscal crisis makes it more apparent than ever that Illinois' tax system is in need of major reform. Illinois has the fifth lowest income tax burden and is one of the few states in the country with a flat tax. We seek to promote reform that creates a long-term, sustainable solution to our budget crisis and to resolve the unfair burden our current system places on low and moderate income families.

In order for Illinois to have a tax system that meets the state's structural needs for funding, we must raise the income tax. Vital social services – including education, healthcare, and basic human needs – are in immediate danger of facing drastic cuts unless new, reliable revenue is generated. To prevent deep cuts to programs that serve our children, older adults, and individuals with disabilities, we need to raise revenue to close the gap.

Clergy, community, and labor have come together to assert that Chicago residents need good jobs with living wages.  Good jobs are key to enable hard-working people to care for their families and lift themselves out of poverty.  We believe no one should work a full-time job and still be poor.

Many claim the recession is over, but Chicago’s families continue to struggle.  People on Main Street continue to suffer layoffs and high unemployment.  11.2% of city residents are currently unemployed.  Black communities face almost double the rate of unemployment as Whites.  Latinos are disproportionally impacted as well.

In addition, Chicagoans that are able to work full-time minimum wage jobs earn only $16,640.  That still is $5,410 under the poverty level for a family of four.

The Grassroots Collaborative is a key member of Communities for an Equitable Olympics (CEO) 2016. CEO 2016 is a coalition of community and labor organizations working to ensure that Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Games leads to equitable policy changes for low-income and working families. The Collaborative is working with CEO 2016 to make sure that community residents have a real voice in the process of planning for the Games. CEO 2016 is working to win a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) that ensures equitable policies around affordable housing, jobs and economic development, and transportation.

In 1998, the Grassroots Collaborative organized with our allies to pass the original Living Wage ordinance to increase the minimum wage for contracted employees of the City of Chicago. We won a subsequent campaign to index increases to cost of living adjustment.

We marched in Chicago with fellow organizations supporting Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2000. Over 10,000 people were firmly joined together in the belief that undocumented immigrants deserve humanitarian consideration and treatment.

The Collaborative networked with statewide groups to extend insurance coverage to the children of the working poor, increasing eligibility for an estimated 170,000 additional kids. Together, we negotiated with Illinois government entities to address unfair denial of state services to qualified Illinois families.

From 2002 to 2004, the Grassroots Collaborative coordinated resources across Illinois to present an economic package of housing, healthcare, immigrants' rights, highway safety, jobs and income supports to state legislators. Our effort resulted in a 4,000 person march in Springfield to hold the state legislators and the governor accountable to their constituents. Two outcomes of this campaign were the restoration of state funding for certain local education programs and In-State Tuition rates for undocumented college students.

In 1998, the Grassroots Collaborative organized with our allies to pass the original Living Wage ordinance to increase the minimum wage for contracted employees of the City of Chicago. We won a subsequent campaign to index increases to cost of living adjustment.