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How do we balance Riverside's budget?

(78 posts)
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  1. ChrisHajer
    Member

    From Crain's this week (I think you need to be a subscriber to access that):

    Crain's Logo

    From this week's Opinion
    Tax hikes no cure for state's fiscal ailments
    February 02, 2009

    With Rod Blagojevich out of the way, Illinois leaders must turn immediately to solving the state's fiscal crisis.

    Illinois faces a $4-billion deficit, and new Gov. Patrick Quinn will have just 30 days to submit a budget plan to close the gap.

    Talk in Springfield already is turning to a tax hike. State Senate President John Cullerton confirmed as much last week, telling Crain's Steven R. Strahler that increases in both the income tax and gas tax are possible.

    Before they raise anybody's taxes, legislators should attack the root causes of Illinois' chronic budget shortfalls. Mr. Blagojevich's profligacy is only partly to blame for the yawning deficit. Built-in inefficiencies and waste in state government contributed, too.

    Spending cuts and structural changes to streamline government should be part of any budget-balancing exercise. Lawmakers must make hard choices and attack the largest sources of pressure on the state treasury.

    Start with state pensions, which are underfunded by tens of billions. Illinois can't afford its generous public employee pension system and must adopt the kind of retirement plans private companies have shifted to over the past 20 years.

    Move on to the duplicative and wasteful proliferation of government agencies in Illinois. Numerous townships and small school districts draw funds from the state and increase the property tax burden. The townships are unnecessary and should be eliminated, while many smaller school districts should be consolidated.

    Purging structural inefficiencies will provide lasting savings for Illinois taxpayers. After making these reforms, legislators should order a top-to-bottom review of state operations, looking for ways to reduce headcount and other expenditures and make government more efficient. Every expense should be scrutinized and those that are not the most efficient means of achieving the state's objective eliminated.

    Only after squeezing every unnecessary dime out of spending can we determine if a tax hike is really needed and, if so, how big it should be.

    ©2009 by Crain Communications Inc.

    The full article is archived here.

    It seems to me all local governments are facing similar if not identical problems. So, how are we going to solve the problem in Riverside?

    Posted Wednesday Feb 4, 2009 10:45 #

  2. Catherine
    Member

    Seems to me they've laid out the issue and solution pretty well right there.

    As to specifics, it is, as they say, up to elected officials to incur the wrath of employees - who might be neighbors and certainly are in a position to make one's life er, less pleasant - by proposing them for the chopping block, in my opinion! I already had my baptism of fire by suggesting Recreation, only to have them give it a chop in the end anyway.

    Posted Wednesday Feb 4, 2009 11:00 #

  3. Plebian
    Member

    What are the functions of Riverside Township?

    Posted Wednesday Feb 4, 2009 11:44 #

  4. spatny
    Member

    Here's some stats on Riverside Township, but based on 2000 census. It handles taxation and owns the Village Hall.

    http://www.city-data.com/township/Riverside-Cook-IL.html

    Posted Wednesday Feb 4, 2009 13:32 #

  5. Roger
    Member

    One slight correction. The Township assessor is actually an employee of the county assesor. Townships generally extend the courtesy of an office to the assessor. Townships also handle "general assistance" to those in need. A township may choose to levy infrastructure taxes and perform work. In the case of Riverside, the township has paved roads in Riverside Lawn and maintains the swinging bridge.

    Posted Wednesday Feb 4, 2009 14:06 #

  6. Catherine
    Member

    If you look at your tax bill, you will see the Township gets a handsome share of the money. It would be nice to know their budget, as it was once suggested to me it would be a good place to look for savings. I visited them once and got their website address. It appears they have meetings on the second Tuesday of every month. I guess we should find out what they're spending the money on.

    http://www.toi.org/RIVERSIDETOWNSHIP/

    Perhaps we should look also to Pat Quinn for suggestions, as it appears Illinois has a $9 billion deficit according to comptroller Hynes. And $60billion unfunded pension payments owing. Gee whiz.

    Posted Wednesday Feb 4, 2009 22:57 #

  7. Catherine
    Member

    Naperville has Home Rule, and:

    "[Councilman] Furstenau said he is "very concerned" about Naperville's financial difficulties due to sharp declines in real estate transfer taxes and retail sales taxes. He remains involved in all council budget discussions but has agreed to excuse himself from meetings regarding his lawsuit.

    In recent months, the city has instituted a hiring freeze, laid off 20 employees and eliminated 23 vacant positions, or 5 percent of its workforce, to save about $3 million for the year."

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-naper-suit-w-zone-05feb05,0,2451496.story

    THEY are complaining about their legal bills! They have 15 - 20 TIMES the population we have and the bills are not even 4 TIMES what ours are!

    Posted Thursday Feb 5, 2009 11:22 #

  8. JohnM
    Member

    A few weeks back, after a discussion with Catherine, I swore off posting here. I haven't stopped reading, though, and this last post contains misinformation to which I feel compelled to respond. So, with that fronted, take my post for what it's worth...

    I think in your haste to paint the current Riverside administration in a bad light, you (Catherine) are misreading this article. The $1 million in legal fees are for one specific matter--where some idiot Naperville council member slapped a Naperville cop, and then turned around and sued the city for violating his civil rights. The city has spent almost $1 million defending that particular suit. The $1 million figure is not Naperville's entire legal budget.

    Riverside's legal budget for 2009 is somewhere on the order of $250 k. Do you think this is high for a village like Riverside?

    Posted Thursday Feb 5, 2009 11:57 #

  9. spatny
    Member

    John - I think the total of what we spend on legal costs is higher than that. I think we spend more than we need to, but if it costs $1 million to defend a law case like that it sort of proves a point that much of the legal profession is charging more than most people (and communities) can pay. Naperville has signs up that say it has 130,00 and 120,000 population. And change in government that they might adopt has little relevance to our situation. They have a huge number of businesses of all kinds out there, one or two colleges, freeway connections, etc. Thanks for bringing the info of that lawsuit to light. It's the threat of litigation that stops towns from building skate board parks, allowing skating on the river, all that. Too bad - we used to have more - not less - things for kids to do here - but of course they were not organized. Now we have to have everything sanctioned with an eye to protecting the Village and ourselves from being sued. Too bad. I think we graduate more lawyers than we need, and they all want to earn enough to pay for their schooling, live right, etc. I wonder how long we shall be able to afford them. Same with the medical professions - the docs are hit with huge malpractice insurance rates. Chicken and egg.

    Posted Thursday Feb 5, 2009 13:56 #

  10. JohnM
    Member

    I'm not sure how much the village paid in legal costs last year. All I know is that the 2009 budget is 250k. But that is, as you allude to, a budget, and things can happen that put us over budget.

    But that's really not my point. My point was that Catherine misrepresented the facts of the article to take a cheap shot at the current administration.

    With regard to the rest of your post, I agree with some of your points and disagree with others, but it's off-topic, so if you wish to discuss rising legal costs, I suggest a new post.

    (And, as far as i know, you can still ice skate on the river. I see people ice fishing at Swan Pond, so I presume skating is allowed as well. When I was younger, the best skating was along the stretch of river north of the Forest Avenue bridge--I think the ice was more consistent there than at Swan Pond).

    Posted Thursday Feb 5, 2009 14:41 #

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