Harvey City Council moving to declare suburb "financially distressed" as mayor warns of furloughs
South suburban Harvey is preparing to shut down parts of city government as a result of mounting financial problems.
Harvey Mayor Chris Clark called a special city council meeting Thursday evening to discuss an ordinance to seek assistance from the state by declaring Harvey a "financially distressed city" under Illinois state law.
Clark said cuts and furloughs for city workers are on the way.
"Some people call it a shutdown. I don't call it a shutdown, because we're not just walking away from the city," he said.
Harvey needs $51 million every year to keep operating, but Clark told residents at Thursday's meetings that the government collects nowhere near the projected revenue.
After years of moving money around, Clark said there's no more money. State assistance is needed.
In a more than two-hour presentation at St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church, Clark outlined years of fraud, corruption, and mismanagement from past administrations which he said have left the city $164 million in debt.
"We're not able to pay our vendors and we're not able to take care of our operational expenses," he said.
Clark urged the city council to start the process to declare Harvey a "financially distressed city" so it can seek state oversight of its finances and a potential bailout.
"Our financial situation, we are drowning here," said Ald. Shirley Drewenski (1st Ward).
The council unanimously approved the first step, but a few critics felt the mayor hasn't taken any accountability for the financial deficit, despite now serving in his second term.
"Seven years that he has been mayor, how have you improved or decreased that debt at all, and we don't have no record of that," said concerned resident Amanda Askew.
"The way we're handling things currently right now, we're steady spending excessive money ourselves, so it's only a matter of time before this happens again," said Ald. Tracy Key (4th Ward).
As Harvey takes the step to become a distressed city, immediate cuts to city services will take place. City workers will also get furloughed.
Clark acknowledged he's concerned furloughed workers could take jobs somewhere else, and won't come back to work for the city in the future.
"I'm always concerned about that, and many of our workers have been here for quite some time and we consider them to be family, so that's always a concern to me, but when I got elected, my ultimate responsibility was to the residents of this city," he said.
The mayor would not say how many city workers would get furloughed, or for how long the furloughs would last.
The furloughs will happen in waves, and while first responders are not exempt, they will be last ones impacted.
While the city wants the state to declare Harvey "financially distressed," the process doesn't happen overnight, and it's unclear how soon the state could step in.