Emanuel Administration Outlining Budget Details In City Council Hearings
(CBS) -- This is the first day of City Council hearings into Mayor Rahm Emanuel's proposed 2016 budget, and the administration is trying to provide aldermen with more details about its revenue and spending plans, reports WBBM Political Editor Craig Dellimore.
Outlining the mayor's 2016 budget, Budget Director Alexandra Holt stressed that hundreds of millions in savings were realized before that whopping property tax hike was proposed.
As for other taxes, Holt says transportation alone will provide $240 million.
"This is up significantly from 2015 year-end estimates of $191 million," Holt said. "The growth is due largely to an increase in ground transportation tax revenues as a result of the proposed fifty cent per-trip fee on rides provided by ride-share companies and taxis along with a proposed surcharge on airport pick-up by ride-share providers."
But regular cab drivers have been protesting, saying that their incomes will be reduced when they have to compete with the less regulated ride-sharing services at city airports and McCormick Place.
Some aldermen are hearing from constituents who think it's unfair that most residences will pay a $9.50 a month flat fee for garbage collection when some homes discard two carts' worth of trash and recyclables while others have multiple carts. Holt doesn't disagree.
"We recognize that there is a potential inequity there," she said.
But she says administratively the city is not in a position to charge by trash volume yet.
"Our proposal is to start with a low flat fee and over then over the course of this next year between Department of Streets and Sanitation and Finance and some outside parties, start to take a look at what a volume-based or a cart-based structure might look like," Holt said.
It might be a per-cart charge Holt says or something that encourages recycling, but not right now.